The podcast where we love to hate movies! Comedian Jay Light sits down with a guest to talk smack about a movie they wish they hadn't watched.
PLEASE TAKE MY AUDIENCE SURVEY: https://bit.ly/2Yoyb7V Jay (@DietJay) and Ian (@IanZandi) try to make sense of Yorgos Lanthimos's The Killing of a Sacred Deer, a weirdo movie by a weirdo director that plays to some of his strengths but falls prey to many of his weaknesses. Is it good? Is it bad? Can we even figure that much out? Or is Yorgos Lanthimos fucking with us all on a colossal scale?
PLEASE TAKE MY AUDIENCE SURVEY: https://bit.ly/2Yoyb7V Jay (@DietJay) and Eli (@EliMagers) talk about indie sensation 500 Days Of Summer , the Zooey Deschanel/Joseph Gordon-Levitt movie that turned the rom-com on its head in 2009 but might not hold up to scrutiny a decade later, especially now that manic pixie dream girls and weird dudes with control issues and shaky interpretations of masculinity are no longer all the rage.
PLEASE TAKE MY AUDIENCE SURVEY: https://bit.ly/2Yoyb7V Jay (@DietJay) and Erik (@ErikWargo) discuss War Of The Worlds , a movie that somehow managed to completely misuse the twin talents of Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg to create a movie that feels aimless, hopeless, and "I want to root for these characters to survive and succeed"-less.
PLEASE TAKE MY AUDIENCE SURVEY: https://bit.ly/2Yoyb7V Jay (@DietJay) and Remy (@RemyKassimir) discuss 2019's Best Picture winner Green Book , another classic "white guy learns how to not be racist" movie that feels designed from the top down to trick dumb people into believing they're watching something smart and groundbreaking. Because there's better way to get people to put aside their differences by proving that we're all big ol' dummies sometimes, right?!?!?! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! RIGHT?!...
Jay (@DietJay) and J.F. (@jfharris) discuss Jim Jarmusch's The Limits Of Control , a strange misfire in the career of a beloved eccentric that takes a hitman movie and turns it into a movie that can't stop screaming about how cool and artsy it is for the entire two hours. You know, a real fun watch!
Jay (@DietJay) and Justin (@therealjustintrue) talk about the Shia LeBeouf debacle known as Charlie Countryman , a movie that manages to blend surrealism, a fish-out-of-water comedy, and a gangster love story into an incomprehensible slop that truly feels like a waste of time – and of Shia LeBeouf's undeniable talented. (YES HE IS WILDLY TALENTED COME AT ME IF YOU DISAGREE)
Jay (@DietJay) and Tom (@faketomwhalen) discuss Into The Wild , the Sean Penn-directed biopic about wilderness explorer and young idiot Christopher McCandless. Tom thinks it's too long and gives people the wrong ideas about self-reliance, and Jay thinks it's one of the best cautionary tales he's ever seen. Who's right?
Jay (@DietJay) and Tim (@timtheokay) break down the cinematic adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower, a movie that crawled out of development hell with Matthew McConnaughey and Idris Elba attached to it, and managed to turn a beloved sci-fi/western by one of the world's most popular authors into an unwatchable gray mess.
Jay (@DietJay) and Sara (@SaraDresses) discuss the classic Bill Murray/Harold Ramis team-up Groundhog Day , a movie Jay thinks is one of the greatest comedies of all time and that Sara thinks is a derivative piece of trash and one of the lowest points of her community college experience.
Jay (@DietJay) and Rivers (@RiversLangley) discuss Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread , a movie that feels hard to love thanks to the slow-burn hatred you feel on behalf of Daniel Day-Lewis's final character, the incomparable Reynolds Woodcock. (Side note: I am extremely glad Paul Thomas Anderson didn't waste the good Woodcock name on Boogie Nights .)
Jay (@DietJay) and Tim (@eloquentwitim) recover from audio problems after their first recording to finally bring you a takedown of Adam McKay's Vice, a preaching-to-the-choir biopic about Dick Cheney with no characters you can root for and that tries too hard to wink at the audience and remind you that it's a comedy every single step of the way.
Jay (@DietJay) and Brian (@b3OC) discuss Last Action Hero , the 90s classic that skewered action movies and Arnold Schwarzenegger at an almost expert level – that is, until you pick it apart and figure out that it doesn't tick the boxes of being a fully composed movie and relies too much and tropes and not enough on story. Oh, and we divert for like 15 minutes to talk about high school speech and debate. It's a double-length doozy!
Jay (@DietJay) and Ken (@kengarrwastaken) discuss Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia , the magnum opus that wasn't, and try to unpack what happens when you give a young hotshot artist with a ton of ambition a little too much free reign and debate whether or not you can tell when someone's best creative years are behind them.
Jay (@DietJay) and Ari (@arimannis) both were unpleasantly surprised by XXX: Return of Xander Cage, the third installment in a trilogy nobody asked for that puts Vin Diesel's TOTALLY RADICAL super-spy in a bunch of sleeveless hijinks in a movie that feels like what you see before you die after overdosing on energy drinks.
Jay (@DietJay) and Mike (@TheMikeLawrence) talk about 2018's A Star Is Born , the remake of a remake of a remake that's got a boatload of Oscar buzz thanks to the hard, hard work of its writer/director/star/guy who REALLY wants you to take him seriously as a Modern Hollywood Icon™, Bradley Cooper. Come for the songs with extremely on-the-nose lyrics about how the characters feel, stay for Sam Elliott's mustache and Andrew Dice Clay's lazy eye.
Jay (@DietJay) and Craig (@CraigConant) discuss Pacific Rim: Uprising , a sequel to a badass robots-fighting-monsters movie that somehow made the exact same concept a thousand times less watchable. Plus, any movie that turns Charlie Day into a run-of-the-mill character (even if he has sex with an alien's brain) is pretty lame in our books.
Jay (@DietJay) and David (@d_rabinowitz) discuss Animal House: the first National Lampoon movie, a film that created the college comedy genre, and a plotless dumpster fire that is only saved by the genius of John Belushi. Maybe National Lampoon wouldn't have gone bankrupt if they'd gotten residuals from the thousands of fratboys throwing toga parties...
On a very special episode of Blockbusting, Jay (@DietJay) and Jessica (@JessWellington2) talk about The Mule , Clint Eastwood's latest attempt to stay relevant and a film that Jessica did not realize we would be talking shit about until literally minutes before we started recording. Because she's in it and she wanted to promote it. I can't blame her for trying but I can blame Clint Eastwood for making a boring-ass movie!
Jay (@DietJay) and Jayson (@theteeb) discuss M. Night Shyamalan's latest disaster, Glass , and try to make sense of not only his wildly uneven career, but also of the myriad missteps that led to a completely underwhelming conclusion to an otherwise solid trilogy. And we swear it's not just his weird cameo.
Jay (@DietJay) welcomes Zane (@ZaneHelberg) back into the studio to discuss 2018's Mandy , the wild revenge movie that's a pinnacle of arthouse horror filmmaking, features a gloriously gory dream role for Nicolas Cage, and was a pure nightmare for Zane, who hated pretty much every single minute of the flick.
Jay (@DietJay) and Quincy (@LLQJ206) discuss Hereditary, Jay's favorite movie of 2018 and a movie Quincy thought was too slow and confusing for its own good. Join these two as they try to figure out one central question: can a movie with a bunch of good parts still wind up being a bad movie? (And why the hell isn't Toni Collette getting awards nominations for this?)
Jay (@DietJay) and Luke (@LukeDoesStuff) discuss Alfonso Cuarón's opus Roma , a film that Jay thought was a fantastic homage to old-school filmmaking and that Luke thought was trying way too hard to prove that it was a cool arthouse movie. Listen to them debate the merits and pitfalls of one of 2018's most critically-acclaimed movies.
Jay (@DietJay) and Sean (@seanoconnory) discuss Inside Out , a Pixar classic and one of the saddest kids movies you'll ever watch. While it was critically acclaimed and Oscar-nominated, Sean's not buying the hype -- and he even cried while watching the movie! Clearly we have a lot to argue about when it comes to this cartoon for children is good or not.
Jay (@DietJay) and Handren (@HandrenSeavey) talk about James Cameron's Avatar , a movie over a decade in the making that is one of the most beautiful pieces of trash you'll ever see, and try to figure out what's the worst part. Is it the hacky, done-to-death story? The weird alien sex? Or is it simply the masturbatory ego that self-proclaimed King of the World James Cameron can't help but include in every frame of the goddamn movie?
Jay (@DietJay) and Tyler (@tylermez) discuss new classic horror film It Follows , a movie about a murderous sexually-transmitted monster that Jay thinks is pretty swell and Tyler thinks is pretty incomprehensible. This episode's got it all: arguing about running in high heels, a contingency plan for what to do when you're pursued by a sex demon, nostalgia, and more!
On a very special episode of Blockbusting, Jay (@DietJay) lets Mike (@MikeFalzone) explain why PCU , the long-forgotten 1994 comedy starring Jeremy Piven and his rapidly receding hairline, is his favorite movie of all time, thanks in part to its laid-back attitude, it's surprisingly up-to-date plot, and its healthy dose of Parliament-Funkadelic songs.
Jay (@DietJay) and Jimmy (@Jimmytheworm) talk about Justice League , the DCEU's attempt to force-feed us their version of The Avengers, and discuss how deviating from the more serious tone of Christopher Nolan's films did nothing but hurt their chances of success in the eyes of comic book fans.
Jay (@DietJay) and Danielle (@DivaDelux) talk about Love Actually , the British romantic dramedy that somehow became a modern Christmas classic despite barely being about Christmas, and focusing instead on a group of people who have no idea what being in love is actually supposed to look like. Let us explain to you why this movie is the lump of coal in your stocking.
Jay (@DietJay) and Connor (@connormcspadden) talk about 2009's Splice , a movie about scientists doing genetic experiments that actually feels like it has a lot going for it (in that high-caliber B-movie kind of way) until Adrien Brody decides to do some weird, slightly incestuous monster-fucking.
Jay (@DietJay) and Kevin (@KevinTienken) talk smack about everyone's favorite animal-playing-human-sports movie, Air Bud , the surprisingly dark Disney classic that spawned some of the worst sequels and spinoffs that your kids will ever force you to watch with them. Dogs playing basketball? Passable. Talking puppies accidentally getting launched into space? Get that nonsense out of the DVD player.
