Dragon Month (heretofore referred to as Here May Be Dragons, since it’s just a more awesome name) chugs along with returning guest Betsy Stone and 1996’s CGI-Sean-Connery vehicle Dragonheart ! When an asshole king (David Thewlis) terrorizes the land, it’s up to a roguish dragonslayer (Dennis Quaid) and his snarky dragon pal (Connery) to save the day. Sub-PlayStation One CGI and semi-modernized Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves antics abound, which we break down for you along with our custom cocktail...
May 12, 2016•1 hr 8 min
This week on Alcohollywood, we start our May-long ode to legend’s greatest beasts with DRAGON MONTH! (We promise, we’ll take a break from theme months after this one.) Starting off, returning guest Todd Kuhns joins us to talk 2002’s post-apocalyptic dragon flick Reign of Fire , starring Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey! In the grim future of 2020 – presumably in the fiery wake of President Trump’s first term – dragons rule the earth, and humans are left to huddle in castles and reenact Sta...
May 05, 2016•53 min
This week on Alcohollywood, Blake Goble of Consequence of Sound joins us to pay homage to Prince in the wake of his tragic passing with his flawed-but-singular 1984 opus Purple Rain ! Telling the tale of young Prince (played here, oddly, by late-twenties Prince already in his sexual-dandy outfits) and his struggle to get to the top of the Minneapolis music scene, Purple Rain is chock full of Prince’s thumping soundtrack, incredible concert sequences, and…some pretty unfortunate acting and a thre...
Apr 30, 2016•1 hr 20 min
This week, playwright Dusty Wilson joins us once again to keep the rain train a’rolling with 80s action-thriller Black Rain, directed by Ridley Scott! One of the most non-Michael Mann encapsulations of 80s gritty cheese, Black Rain follows hard-nosed Dirty Harry type Nick Conklin (Michael Douglas) as he tries to catch a yakuza murderer who slips from his grasp during a prisoner exchange to Osaka, Japan. The movie’s full of astounding cinematography, amusingly reductive depictions of Japanese cul...
Apr 23, 2016•1 hr 28 min
April Showers continues with our guests Scott and Eric of The Butter Hours ! Week 2 of our marathon of films with ‘rain’ in the title moves forward with the 1990s action-thriller Hard Rain, starring Christian Slater as a nosy armored truck driver who defends his cargo in a flooding rural town from a group of masermind criminals led by Morgan Freeman. Filled with inexplicable Christian imagery and sassy trap-setting Betty Whites, this ‘Die Hard during a flood’ film is a singular wonder. Check out...
Apr 15, 2016•1 hr 24 min
Now that Jared and Clint have escaped from Mars, they’re stuck on an Earth that perpetually rains! While they figure a way out of this conundrum, they’ll review movies with ‘Rain’ in the title all April, starting with 1988’s Best Picture winner Rain Man, starring Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman as a pair of mismatched brothers – one a selfish yuppie, the other an autistic savant – reconnecting amidst all manner of shenanigans. Despite inspiring a number of crass depictions of developmental disorde...
Apr 08, 2016•1 hr 28 min
This week, Geek Girl Chicago herself Lauren Faits joins us as we finish up our month-long quest with last year’s Oscar Best Picture-nominee The Martian, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon as a smarmy botanist who has to Robinson Crusoe his way through Mars while stranded there after being left for dead. A wonderfully straightforward crowd-pleaser, The Martian manages to make science cool again by focusing on the methodical, analytical problem-solving, while miraculously keeping thi...
Mar 31, 2016•1 hr 20 min
This week, Jared and Clint (along with Justin Gerber of Consequence of Sound ‘s new show Gerber & Gerber ) kick off week 4 of our Mars-centric March with Disney’s 2012 flop John Carter ! Based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs books no one remembers anymore, John Carter is a big shaggy dog of a movie in which Confederate soldier Carter (a totally-surfer Taylor Kitsch) is thrust into a fantasy Mars filled with red men, green men, white apes and blue blood. The film is one of Disney’s most notorious...
Mar 28, 2016•1 hr 15 min
As we continue Mars-ch on Alcohollywood, returning guest Craig (with a little help from new guest Alicia) joins us to talk John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars ! An entertainingly cheesy change from the astronaut-based disaster movies that make up most Mars movies, Ghosts of Mars is late-career Carpenter at his most gonzo. Featuring a group of Mars cops (led by Natasha Henstridge and Jason Statham) and a band of criminals (led by professional lip-biter Ice Cube) fending off a group of possessed Marti...
Mar 21, 2016•1 hr 18 min
This week on Alcohollywood, Ele Matelan of WildClaw Theatre joins us as we continue our March full of Mars movies with the companion piece to last week’s Red Planet, Brian De Palma’s Disney-produced Mission to Mars ! Telling the same story of a group of astronauts taking off for the Red Planet (Gary Sinise, Connie Nielsen, Tim Robbins and Jerry O’Connell) to investigate Don Cheadle’s doomed first mission, De Palma’s 2001 -lite slog takes some hard left turns amongst its Disney-caliber safeness, ...
Mar 13, 2016•1 hr 35 min
All of March, the Alcohollywood crew is blasting off to the Red Planet for five movies set on Mars! First up, Nick Freed of Consequence of Sound joins us to talk 2000’s Red Planet (namely, the movie where Val Kilmer threw a dumbbell at Tom Sizemore during filming). The Armageddon to Mission to Mars’ Deep Impact, Red Planet is a bizarre mix of 2001, Stealth and The Matrix in which a group of bro-y scientists crash-land on Mars to investigate a failed terraforming experiment, only to find themselv...
Mar 05, 2016•1 hr 20 min
It's Oscar season, and this year the Best Picture nominee we're covering is the balls-to-the-wall action extravaganza Mad Max: Fury Road , the fourth film in the ever-so-weird Australian post-apocalyptic action series! Special guest Theo joins us to talk George Miller's crowd-pleasing mix of practical effects, curiously effective visual storytelling, and incredibly dynamic action. It was a surprise hit in the Oscar nominations, but will Clint's effusive praise sway the slightly more skeptical Ja...
Feb 26, 2016•1 hr 35 min
This week, Leah Pickett of Consequence of Sound and other fine publications joins us to delve into our second Tim Allen movie in as many months – 1997’s Jungle 2 Jungle ! The American remake of a French comedy that Roger Ebert described as “ one of the worst movies ever made ,” J2J stars Tim Allen as, of all things, a selfish commodities broker who has to take his jungle-raised son to New York City and teach him the ways of the concrete jungle. Throw in gratuitous tarantula torture, icky stereot...
Feb 20, 2016•1 hr 31 min
Happy Valentine's Day to all you movie/booze lovers out there! This year's romcom is the listener-requested 2006 Nancy Meyers film The Holiday , starring Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet as a couple of down-on-their-luck ladies who decide to swap houses for the holidays to recharge their batteries. Along the way, they meet some hunks, engage in some slapstick, and learn a little thing or two about Old Hollywood. Listen to us yammer on about one of the better romcoms we've had to cover on this show,...
Feb 14, 2016•1 hr 21 min
This week, we break bread (and boards) with returning guest Derek Jarvis as we check out Stephen Chow's cult kung-fu comedy Kung Fu Hustle ! A wacky homage to everything from 40s jazz movies to Westerns to classic kung fu cinema of the 70s, Chow's blitzkrieg of high-flying antics, goofy CGI gags and incredible fight choreography from Yuen Wo Ping is something you simply have to see to believe. Along the way, we gab about the cross-pollination of Eastern and Western films, Stephen Chow's crazy si...
Feb 07, 2016•1 hr 18 min
This week, James Thompson (of Geekspotting and the new Meanwhile... Podcast) joins us to take on Constantine, the comic-book adaptation of DC's Hellblazer ! Transplanting the British supernatural private eye to LA, and turning him from an acerbic Sting lookalike to dour Keanu Reeves, the film nonetheless gives us oodles of visual style, androgynous Tilda Swinton angels, and a veritable bevy of Catholic creepy-crawlies. Thrill as we discuss Shia Labeouf's stammering (or lack thereof), the fact th...
Jan 30, 2016•1 hr 30 min
This week on the podcast, Chicago actor and friend of the show Tom McGrath ( @TCMcG ) joins us to pay tribute to the late, great Alan Rickman with the 1999 sci-fi comedy Galaxy Quest ! A pitch-perfect parody/celebration of Star Trek and science fiction fandom that's way better than it has any right to be, Rickman's Spock-like Dr. Lazarus is just one great piece in this hilarious cult puzzle. Along the way, we give our drinking rules, show you the recipe for our custom cocktail (see below), and f...
Jan 22, 2016•1 hr 43 min
This week on Alcohollywood, we switch gears with Grant from Chip & Ironicus (specifically Chipod Ironicast ) to talk the crazy 2009 anime racing flick Redline ! Unlike the last anime we watched (Satoshi Kon’s Paprika ) Redline ‘s uniquely concerned with the fast and the furious – fluid racing animation, a crazy anime story, broad alien characters and all of the jiggling robot boobs a 14-year-old weeaboo could ever hope for. It’s not subtle, and it might not even be good in the conventional s...
Jan 16, 2016•1 hr 25 min
This week on the podcast, Clint and Jared go it alone as we dive into the deep dark recesses of 90s goth-action-horror with the 1999's Beowulf ! "Based" on the 8th-century epic poem, this steampunk/Hot Topic goth retelling of the classic tale sees the Highlander himself, Christopher Lambert (channeling both Rayden and Roy Batty from Blade Runner ) arriving at a mysterious post-apocalyptic outpost to help slay a mysterious creature besieging it. Along the way, he ogles Rhona Mitra's comely Kyra, ...
Jan 08, 2016•1 hr 22 min
Happy New Year, listeners! Since it's 2016, we thought we'd kick things off with John Hughes' cult comedy classic Sixteen Candles - you know, the one with all the racism and implicit date rape? Returning guest Julia joins us to take on yet another John Hughes movie and yet another high school flick (both subgroups of film that Jared has historically hated). Will he be turned around by the charmingly self-centered travails of sexually frustrated teen Sam (Molly Ringwald), insecure predator The Ge...
Jan 02, 2016•1 hr 20 min
Happy holidays, you reprobates! To ring in the Christmas season, we invited Sean Price from the Life is Like a Movie Podcast to talk about yet another unconventional holiday classic – so unconventional even the characters don’t know why it takes place on Christmas: Rocky IV ! With Creed getting praise left and right, it’s weird to think that so much of the plot of that Oscar-caliber drama is dependent on this splendiferous piece of ’80s cheese, in which the Italian Stallion (Sly Stallone, also w...
Dec 24, 2015•1 hr 13 min
Harry Connickuh, everybody! This week, Mark Soloff of Blastropodcast and Our Fair City flies in from his home planet to celebrate the week before Christmas, where we sample another entry in the oeuvre of Renaissance man Harry Connick Jr.! This year, we’re melding Connickuh and Christmas a bit with 2013’s made-for-TV movie Angels Sing, in which cynical rad-dad Michael Walker (Connick Jr.) learns the true meaning of Christmas after getting a house at a steal from Weed Santa (Willie Nelson). That m...
Dec 20, 2015•1 hr 25 min
This week, Chicago geek titan Aaron J. Amendola (of VStheUNIVERSE and Panels on Channels ) graces our microphones to help us talk about the charming 90s comic book flick The Rocketeer ! Based on the comic book, The Rocketeer follows stunt pilot Cliff Secord (Billy Campbell), who stumbles upon a rocket pack invented by Howard Hughes (Terry O'Quinn) and - who else - the Nazis! Joe Johnston's audition tape for Captain America: The First Avenger is a fun celebration of the Golden Age of Hollywood wh...
Dec 13, 2015•1 hr 29 min
This week on the podcast, guest Nick Ostrem joins us to talk about the little-seen but widely under-valued 1997 Canadian comedy The Wrong Guy ! Dave Foley ( The Kids in the Hall, NewsRadio ) co-wrote and stars in this cult caper about an oblivious, melodramatic account executive (Foley) who wrongly presumes he’s being wrongfully accused of his boss’s murder. Check the whole thing in full on Youtube , and join us as we discuss Nelson’s cowardice, the cultural power of the Barenaked Ladies, the da...
Dec 07, 2015•1 hr 17 min
As we all wind down from our Thanksgiving food comas, Grant from Chip & Ironicus joins us as we sink our teeth into 1999's cannibal-vampire-Western-dark-comedy Ravenous ! When cowardly Sgt. Boyd (Guy Pearce) is transferred to an American Army outpost in the middle of nowhere after the Mexican-American War, he finds himself at odds with a sadistic wendigo (Robert Carlyle) who preys on him and the rest of the men in his camp. Check out our custom cocktail and drinking rules as we ask the big q...
Nov 29, 2015•1 hr 19 min
This week on Alcohollywood, improv-esario Pat Niday joins us to talk 1994’s strangely modern reboot of The Little Rascals ! Directed by Wayne’s World ’s Penelope Spheeris, The Little Rascals takes place in a bizarre world where the idiosyncratic group of 30s delinquents somehow also grew up and were socialized in modern-day Los Angeles, and cause all manner of mayhem while also sort-of having parents? It’s all a bit confusing, and the terrible kid actors do little to help the matter; still, we’v...
Nov 24, 2015•1 hr 13 min
NOTE: Technical difficulties meant that this episode ended up being recorded on laptop sound as opposed to our fancy equipment. It’s still listenable, but not up to our usual high standards. Thanks for your patience, and everything will be kosher next episode! This week, Dusty Wilson of Mercy Street Theatre Company joins us in our much-needed respite from critically-acclaimed dramas and spooky foreign films to kick back with the schlocky Arnold Schwarzenegger flick The Running Man ! The Running ...
Nov 16, 2015•1 hr 23 min
This week on Alcohollywood, guest Ele Matelan of WildClaw Theatre (and our friend from Our Fair City ) grabs a milkshake and sits down with us to talk about listener request and 2007 arthouse darling There Will Be Blood ! Among one of the more contemplative films in Paul Thomas Anderson’s repertoire, TWWB tells the story of Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis, in an oft-admired and long-impersonated performance), an unscrupulous oil man who seeks to start and expand his oil empire from nothing. F...
Nov 07, 2015•1 hr 29 min
(Thanks to our sponsor Emporium Arcade Bar , as part of the Chicago Podcast Coop !) We’re finishing up HORROR OCTORBOR FOUR-BOR, our exploration of foreign horror films, with Guillermo Del Toro’s 2001 historical supernatural drama The Devil’s Backbone ! Justin Gerber of Consequence of Sound joins us to talk about Del Toro’s spiritual sibling to his later film Pan’s Labyrinth, in which a group of orphans deal with the ghost of their deceased friend while the staff of the orphanage tries to naviga...
Oct 30, 2015•1 hr 8 min
HORROR OCTORBOR FOUR-BOR continues this week, as we (along with ten-time guest Derek Jarvis) take a look at one of the most extreme foreign horror films around – 2008’s Martyrs ! A shining, bloody example of the French New Extremity movement, Martyrs deals with a young victim of trauma (Mylene Jampanoi) and her supportive friend (Morjana Alaoui) as they confront the presence of a cult that seeks to find transcendence through extreme pain. The results are grossifying and not for the weak-stomache...
Oct 24, 2015•1 hr 15 min
