The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)

Hah hah! Stand back, musketeers! They shall sample MY blade! En garde! Touché! Café au lait! Yes, we have a swashbuckling classic this week in our “Cuz I Wanna (and You’re Gonna Like It)” series, “The Scarlet Pimpernel”! And what a swashbuckler this is! Sword fights! Daring midnight chases! Desperate fist-fights . . . pardon? Oh. There’s NONE of that here? No musketeers? No “my blade”? Just disguises, cunning plans and . . . fashion tips? Really? . . . . huh. Well . . . this IS a famous swashbuckler movie, right? With Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon? Well . . . sink me! What sort of action movie is this? Hah? One of the antecedents for Batman? Seriously? Well, let’s talk about it then! Tie your cravats properly and give a listen!

Poll question: who is your favorite swashbuckler? Leave a comment or swing on a chandelier over to our hotline at 617-398-7266.

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Episode 369 – The Andromeda Strain (1971)

Duuuude! Welcome to, like, our series . . . ummmm, wait, I know this . . . “Cuz I Wanna (and You’re Gonna Like It!)” here at Max . . . Mike . . . something something . . . Sorry, dudes, I’m totally wacked out on this new Andromeda Strain kush. It’s like totally out of this world or something, right? I mean, it feels like my blood is turning to powder right inside me! So far out! Ok, yeah, it’s dissolving my vinyl couch but whatever, man, a couch is just a THING, right? I do NOT get why all these narcs in jumpsuits are freaking out about it, dude. I mean, they’re totally trying to bogart my stash and give it monkeys or something. Wait, did I already say that? Whatever, dudes, just get lifted on our totally mellow podcast today. So enjoy some Strain, or maybe some Squeeze and check us out. Peace!

Poll question: What is the most accurate-feeling s-f movie you’ve seen? Leave a comment or call our futuristic hotline at 617-398-7266.

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Episode 368 – Big Trouble in Little China (1986)

You got trouble, my friends,
Right here in Little China!
With a capital “T” and that rhymes with “P” and that stands for Pan (crowd: “Lo Pan!”)
Yeah, you got trouble (big trouble!),
Right here in Little China!
Gotta find a girl with jade-green eyes, that is his plan.
(spoken) Mothers of Little China . . . heed this warning! Look for these signs: are your boys wearing red bandannas? Are certain words sneaking into their vocabulary? Words like “the first sovereign emperor” and “Ching Dai, god of the East”? Are they hanging around with the Three Storms and stealing trucks from Jack Burton?
Well if so, my friends . . .

Yup, we’ve got “Big Trouble in Little China this week in our “Cuz I Wanna (And You’re Gonna Like It)” series, a John Carpenter film that didn’t do so hot at the box office but found new life on home video. Does it squander that new life? How well does this forty-year-old movie about martial arts, Chinese mysticism, and Kurt Russell channeling John Wayne hold up? Give a listen . . . or this will really piss us off to no end!

Poll question: what’s your favorite movie that was ignored at the box office but found new life in some other form (home video, midnight shows)?

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Episode 367 – A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Steven Spielberg made a film
A.I., A.I., O!
And in this film he had some bots
A.I., A.I., O!
With bot-bot here and a bot-bot there,
Here a bot, there a bot, everywhere a bot-bot
Steven Spielberg made a film
A.I., A.I., O!

Steven Spielberg made a film
A.I., A.I., O!
And in this film he had Haley Joel Osment starring as a kid-bot
A.I., A.I., O!
With an act-act here, and an act-act there,
Here an act, there an act, everywhere an act-act
This is getting really dull,
A.I., A.I., O!

Well . . . that didn’t go as planned but we are in fact discussing Spielberg’s film “A.I.”, a film conceived of by Stanley Kubrick dealing with the nature of natural versus artificial intelligence and asking the questions “Can a robot love?” The film also asks if a human could love a robot, so you can tell this film predated 4Chan and some of the more questionable corners of the internet where that question has been emphatically answered in the affirmative. Please don’t confirm this for yourself. I beg you. Anyway, give a listen while Max-o-tron and Mike-bot discuss. A.I., A.I. . . . oh.

Poll question: what movie predicted future events/people/technology best? Leave a comment or call our super futuristic hotline at  617-398-7266

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Episode 366 – Dogma (1999)

Snoogins! Me and Lunchbox got us a brand new series: “’Cuz I Wanna (and You’re Gonna Like It),” where we drop insights on movies that we’re watching just ‘cuz we wanna watch them, and we wanna talk about them and we haven’t watched or talked about them yet. Dang straight! And we’re kicking it off with Max’s favorite Kevin Smith flick, 1999’s “Dogma.” This is a simple, light-hearted film that deals with uncomplicated, uncontroversial topics like the nature of God, free will, whether Jesus was White, whether Jesus had siblings, and does God really take the form of a lovely Canadian Alt-Rocker? You know, stuff no one could ever possibly find upsetting or difficult to discuss rationally. Join us and see if we can manage it. Snootch to the mother-f’in nootch!

Poll question: what is your favorite cinematic depiction of celestial beings (angels, devils, god itself)? Leave a comment or call our Celestial hotline at 617-398-7266.

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Episode 365 – Planet of the Vampires (1965)

We come to the close of our spoooooky series “I Vant to Vatch Your Feelm!” with a real whiz-bang of a film: vampires . . . in . . . SPAAAAAACE! Join Captain Frank N. Stein on the star-ship “Nosferatu” as he and his valiant crew, Lt. Renn Fields, Commander Mina O’Harker, and Medical Officer Dr. Acula (“I get it; I don’t like it”) battle the evil Van-Helsoids in a conflict that rages throughout time and space, boldly going to weird, fresh worlds, meeting exotic alien creatures, and draining their blood! Ok, no, this has nothing to do with the actual movie we’re watching, which is a vintage 60’s Italian science-fiction offering, but c’mon, Hollywood! I’m HANDING you your next hit franchise! Have you people call my people! Well, have them call my pony, anyway. In the meantime, set your vamp-o-beams to “exsanguinate” and give a listen!

Poll question: What is your favorite movie plot twist? Leave us a comment or twist our plot on our hotline at 617-398-7266.

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Episode 364 – Renfield (2023)

Welcome to “Cooking with Max, Mike; Movies,” and another in our culinary series “I Vant to Vatch Your Feelm!” You know, when preparing your favorite invertebrate dish, many people overlook the humble termite. Now, most of your haute cuisine recipes tend to focus on the more exotic insects, like the sago grub or the bamboo worm but we at this podcast think that the termite is a taste treat whose time has come. High in oil, they’re great for frying, with a delicately nutty taste. This batch we have here have been fed exclusively on Indian Snakewood, which gives them a marvelously complex flavor palate, and have spent their days bathing in a mild soy sauce/rice wine mixture. Today we’ll be frying them up in sesame oil for a tasty treat that can’t be beat! Ohohohoho, pardon my little quip. This dish should pair well with today’s movie, “Renfield”, whose protagonist prefers his arthropods and arachnids tartare, which is a perfectly acceptable way to enjoy them, other than the fact that they may tend to crawl off the plate, but to each their own! Yes, Mr. Renfield, played by Nicholas Holt, enjoys his six-legged friends as snacks, while his “master” Dracula, played by Nicholas Cage, prefers to spend his days munching on scenery. Enjoy, and bon appetit!

Poll question: what part, if any, of standard vampire lore strikes you as particularly silly/odd/dumb. Exemption: Stephanie Meyers’ sparkle ponies.

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Episode 363 – Near Dark (1987)

Yee haw! Welcome to another rootin’ tootin’ ready-fer-shootin’ episode of “I Vant to Vatch Your Feelm!” Dang, will y’all listen to them children of the night? They make some right purty music don’t they? We got us some good ol’ ‘MURICAN vampires this week, ‘cept’n they don’t rightly call themselves vampires, do they. Nope, these here are Freedompires! Well, that’s what they should be called on account they’re all bit-in-the-U-S-of-A, homegrown bloodsuckers. We got us some favorites of that there James Cameron fella, like Lance “Born to Play a Vampire” Henricksen, Jeannette Goldstein, and F’in’ Bill Paxton hisself! So set a spell, have a shot of moonshine, and listen on up. Good eeeeeevening and yee-haw!!

Poll question: What setting/culture/genre would you most like to see vampires plunked down into?

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Episode 362 – Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

We’re back! In this week’s episode of “I Vant to Vatch Your Feelm!” we are discussing that most terrifying supernatural creature: the Willem Dafoe. No one knows how long the Willem Dafoe has haunted the dreams of humankind but people everywhere are horribly fascinated by this creature of myth. In Japan, he is known as “Dafoe Willem.” In France, they warn their children about “Le Willem Dafoe”; in Germany, peasants used to whisper tales of “Der Willem Dafoe.” Why is this blood-freezing creature of legend so prevalent? Why do so many superstitions tell us that he cannot enter a dwelling if there is a pink-painted Hostess Twinkie nailed to the door? Why does he fear an autographed copy of any Nora Roberts novel published before 1998? How does he subsist only on chocolate-covered escargot? We may never know . . . but we do know that he stars in this movie as a much less frightening creature, a strange actor who may or may not be a simple vampire, in this fictionalized story of F.W. Murnau’s filming of his most famous hit, 1922’s “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror.” Join us and LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU! IT’S WILLEM DAFOE! Ha ha ha, gotcha!

Poll question: which do you enjoy more: supernatural monsters like vampires or science-based monsters like mutants or aliens?

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