It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! And nothing says Christmas like classic TV holiday specials! Over the next two weeks, we’ll be toasting and roasting two of the most famous from the duo of Rankin and Bass. Which of them belongs on the Nice List and which one deserves a shiny lump of coal in its stocking. This is Legends of Christmas! Airing fifty years ago this month, based on the book by Phyllis McGinley, this Rankin and Bass special deals with every child's worst nightmare: Christm...
Dec 23, 2024•32 min•Ep. 707
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! And nothing says Christmas like classic TV holiday specials! Over the next two weeks, we’ll be toasting and roasting two of the most famous from the duo of Rankin and Bass. Which of them belongs on the Nice List and which one deserves a shiny lump of coal in its stocking. This is Legends of Christmas! Airing sixty years ago this month, the first Rankin and Bass Christmas special asked if you recall the most famous reindeer of all. Based on the childre...
Dec 18, 2024•33 min•Ep. 706
We're visiting the Kingdom of Arendelle for a Disney Animated movie based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Snow Queen.” This icy tale makes for perfect pre-holiday viewing, and audiences agreed when they spent over a billion dollars at the box office to see it, making it the highest-grossing film of 2013 and the highest-grossing animated film of all time, at that time. And it wasn’t just audiences who felt the magic, critics agreed and the film racked up awards, including two Oscars:...
Dec 11, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 705
We’re toasting the twentieth anniversary of a film about wine, friendship, and love among the vineyards of the Santa Ynez Valley, California. Directed by Alexander Payne and based on the novel by Rex Pickett, this 2004 hangout/road comedy from Fox Searchlight became a critic’s darling, sweeping the “Big Four” critics’ awards and winning the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar, Golden Globe, BAFTA, WGA, and Critic's Choice awards for Payne and co-writer Jim Taylor. The movie also marked breakthrough pe...
Dec 04, 2024•48 min•Ep. 704
Fall back in time with Legends Podcast! All month long, we’re talking about time travel, paradoxes, and being your own Grandpa. We’re back in 2014, to live, die, and repeat the process as the snake eats its own tail. Ethan Hawke plays a timecop who meets a stranger in a bar, played by Succession’s Sarah Snook. Once the stranger tells his story, none of their lives will ever be the same, while the lives of thousands hang in the balance amid a mysterious bombing spree. Based on Robert A. Heinlein’...
Nov 27, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 703
Fall back in time with Legends Podcast! All month long, we’re talking about time travel, paradoxes, and coming out of the closet. We’re back with an indie film that combines two of our favorite genres: heists and time travel! In order to escape police after a robbery, two estranged siblings lay low in a farmhouse that hides them away in a different time, where they are trapped in a vise between past and future. Starring Adam David Thompson and Riley Dandy, this timey-wimey thriller was written a...
Nov 20, 2024•56 min•Ep. 702
Fall back in time with Legends Podcast! All month long, we’re talking about time travel, paradoxes, and finding a penny in your pocket. “Look, a penny!” Author Richard Matheson is best known as a master of the suspenseful twist. One of his most famous works, I Am Legend, has been adapted as The Omega Man, The Last Man on Earth, and the eponymous Will Smith version. For television, he contributed to Star Trek, created Duel and The Night Stalker, and penned some of the most famous episodes of The ...
Nov 14, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 701
Fall back in time with Legends Podcast! All month long, we’re talking about time travel, paradoxes, and resetting the day with your demise. When PR officer William Cage (played by Tom Cruise) is unwillingly sent into combat against an invading alien army, he unwittingly gains the power to rewind time… but only if he dies. He teams up with war hero Rita Vrataski (played by Emily Blunt), who previously had the same power, to attempt to defeat an alien horde that uses time as a weapon - by living, ...
Nov 06, 2024•54 min•Ep. 700
Legends of Halloween has come to the end of the road. A twisty cliffside road high in the Carpathian Mountains. And at the end of that road, there is a castle. Owned by a kindly old count named… Vlad. The year is 1992 and Francis Ford Coppola is bringing Bram Stoker's classic gothic horror novel to the big screen. Starring Gary Oldman in the titular role, the stacked cast includes Anthony Hopkins, Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves, Richard E. Grant, Cary Elwes, and Billy Campbell. The adaptation of the...
Oct 30, 2024•59 min•Ep. 699
This week, Legends of Halloween checks in with the inventor of pod casting, Seth Brundle. Brundle, played by Jeff, uh, Goldblum, is a reclusive scientist on the cutting edge of baboon-killing technology. While trying to crack the code of instantaneous teleportation, he recklessly experiments on himself. But when a common housefly gets caught in the machine, the result is an exercise in body horror that only David Cronenberg could deliver. The film, a remake of the 1958 classic, co-stars Geena Da...
Oct 23, 2024•1 hr•Ep. 698
Legends of Halloween takes a detour into Lovecraft Country with special guest comic book author Michael Watson. Based on the 1927 short story, H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space” follows the aftermath of a mysterious meteorite that crashes on a family farm in the dark woods west of Arkham, Massachusetts. Starring Nicolas Cage and directed by Richard Stanley, the film adaptation was meant to kickstart a shared Lovecraft cinematic universe, but wound up buried at the box office. And here to...
Oct 16, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 697
Legends of Halloween gets in touch with its inner girl with a 1992 “satirical surrealistic black comedy fantasy film” - and yes, that’s how Wikipedia categorizes it. Directed by Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Helmer Robert Zemeckis, this film defied categorization just as hard as its main characters defy the laws of nature. Meryl Steep and Goldie Hawn star as two image-obsessed rivals for the affection of plastic surgeon-turned-cosmetic mortician Bruce Willis, when they both lea...
Oct 10, 2024•1 hr•Ep. 696
Legends of Halloween is back for another spooky season with a throwback from twenty years ago, which is itself a throwback to the classic Universal Monster movies. Director Stephen Sommers had found success five years earlier in reanimating another Universal monster, The Mummy, with the Legend of ‘99 film starring Brendan Fraser. Here he tries to recapture the magic that led to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s movie career with a Hugh Jackman-starring take on the classics Dracula, Frankenstein, and T...
Oct 02, 2024•54 min•Ep. 695
Nineteen-eighty-four launched a number of sci-fi/comedy franchises, including Ghostbusters, Gremlins, The Toxic Avenger, and the continuation of series like Star Trek and Indiana Jones. Meanwhile, action/comedies like Beverly Hills Cop and Romancing the Stone found success with audiences. Overall, theatergoers preferred lighter fare as opposed to weighty adaptations like Dune and, well, 1984. So what better time to release a movie about a physicist, neurosurgeon, test pilot, rock star, and secre...
Sep 25, 2024•57 min•Ep. 694
We’re joined by listener Jeff to present his exhaustive (and exhausting) take on Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon director’s cut! Clocking in at six hours and seventeen minutes, Jeff took on the Herculean task of watching the entire saga in one sitting, whilst taking copious notes. After he shared them with us a few weeks ago, we decided that the only way we would be able to properly honor his sacrifice would be to invite Jeff himself to join us on the show. So, for the first time in the history of movi...
Sep 23, 2024•51 min•Ep. 693
We're back with a film about filmmaking, spycraft and celebrity, starring the one and only Nicolas Cage. In the movie, Cage plays a fictionalized version of himself, down on his luck and struggling to connect with his teenage daughter, when a wealthy fan (who may or may not be a kidnapper and arms dealer) makes Cage an offer he can't refuse. Co-starring Pedro Pascal, this two-hander is equal parts bromance, action-comedy, and homage to Cage’s lengthy career. And while director Tom Gormican’s deb...
Sep 18, 2024•56 min•Ep. 692
We never watched the movie. So, tonight, we bring you something a bit different. For more geeky podcasts visit GonnaGeek.com You can find us on iTunes under ''Legends Podcast''. Please subscribe and give us a positive review. You can also follow us on Twitter @LegendsPodcast or even better, send us an e-mail: LegendsPodcastS@gmail.com You can write to Rum Daddy directly: rumdaddylegends@gmail.com You can find all our contact information here on the Network page of GonnaGeek.com Our complete arch...
Sep 11, 2024•41 min•Ep. 691
I am awaited! After a long time away, a bombastic veteran makes a triumphant return to the stage that made him famous. I’m talking, of course, about director George Miller, the driving force behind the Mad Max films since the first one hit the gas in 1979. Earlier this year, the latest installment of the Mad Max saga roared into cinemas… but for the first time, Max Rockatansky was not one of the lead characters. Instead, the film focuses on telling the origin story of Furiosa, played by Charlize...
Sep 04, 2024•56 min•Ep. 690
Aug-Heist takes things to the next level with this 2012 thriller about a suicidal man, a stolen diamond, and good old fashioned insurance fraud! With a stacked cast including Sam Worthington, Elizabeth Banks, Anthony Mackie, Jamie Bell, Edward Burns, Kyra Sedgewick, and Ed Harris, the film has all the makings of a genre classic. But it did a bellyflop at the box office and cratered with critics. Was the title a little too “high concept” for audiences, or did the plot twists give viewers vertigo?...
Aug 28, 2024•45 min•Ep. 689
Aug-Heist rolls on with a return to the mean streets of London! Following Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, director Guy Ritchie goes back to the well of the seedy underworld of British tough guys with this year 2000 release. Several LS2SB actors come back as well, including Jason Statham, Vinnie Jones, Jason Flemyng, Alan Ford, and the film adds some non-Brits, too, with Brad Pitt, Dennis Farina, and Benico del Toro in the mix. Clearly following the "if it ain't broke, bloke, don't fix it, i...
Aug 21, 2024•43 min•Ep. 688
We're on a brief hiatus this week, so we've plundered the Legends Vault for some appropriate loot to tide you over. Before we score Guy Ritchie's second film, Snatch, we're giving you our review of his first. This week we’re talking about Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, also one of our Legends of ‘99, the movie that launched the acting careers of Jason Statham and Vinnie Jones, began the directing careers of Guy Ritchie and Matthew Vaughn, spawned a short-lived TV series, and, along with Th...
Aug 13, 2024•51 min•Ep. 65535
We’re kicking off Aug-Heist in a spirit of the Paris Olympics with a French Netflix heist comedy. When two expert thieves and best friends look to retire from a life of crime, they must pull off one last job to buy their way out. The film was directed by Mélanie Laurent, with Adèle Exarchopoulos and Manon Bresch co-starring. Released in 2023 on Netflix, this French-language film was based on a popular graphic novel. But do these feisty heroines steal their way into our hearts, or does this film ...
Aug 08, 2024•49 min•Ep. 687
There’s something strange in the neighborhood - must be a new Ghostbusters movie! The follow-up to 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, this film sees ghostbusting make its triumphant return to the Big Apple and the iconic firehouse. With Afterlife’s cast returning along with Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, Ernie Hudson, and Annie Potts from the originals, the film introduces a new threat in the form of the icy Garraka. Winter is coming for a New York City summer, and it will take multiple generations of G...
Jul 31, 2024•59 min•Ep. 686
After our Shoresy side-quest, we’re back on track and hopping the next train to Transylvania! Rum Daddy’s birthday pick pic is none other than Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder’s classic 1974 send-up of the movie versions of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s classic novel. Starring Wilder, Marty Feldman, Teri Garr, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman, and Peter Boyle as The Monster, the spoof centers on a modern descendant of the infamous Dr. Victor Frankenstein, a Dr. Frederick Frankensteen, who inherits his g...
Jul 24, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 685
This week we’re hitting the back half of Season 2 with the episodes “Players Only,” “The Man Advantage,” and “Accountability.” The Bulldogs are on their way to a perfect season with only two games remaining, but with distractions all around, will they be able to focus up and become the best team in the league, ever? First Shoresy has to help the Jims find a fourth man for their trivia team, then help Frankie keep his head in the game after being dumped (again), then deal with the debt the team o...
Jul 17, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 684
This week we’re talking about the first three episodes of season 2: “Get ‘Em Focused,” “Skill vs. Will,” and “Set the Tone.” The Bulldogs have played a perfect season, but success has led to distractions off the ice. Simply put, the boys are wearing themselves out with the ladies. Shoresy must work even harder to keep the team at the top, but the Jims aren’t themselves and Michaels is acting weird. But then again, goalies are always weird. Things take a turn when the American expansion team, the...
Jul 10, 2024•56 min•Ep. 683
In 1977, director George Roy Hill re-teamed with actor Paul Newman - the pair had previously collaborated on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, two of the biggest movies of the past decade - for an oddball sports comedy about a little-known sport: ice hockey. Written by Nancy Dowd and inspired by her brother Ned’s time playing for the minor-league Johnstown Jets of the oft-flooded steeltown Johnstown, Pennsylvania, the film was originally envisioned as a documentary before Hill pi...
Jul 03, 2024•57 min•Ep. 682
Sorry about the Audio- Beef and Rum Daddy had issues :/ Following the release of The Matrix in 1999, Hollywood saw an explosion of martial arts-focused action movies. Riding that wave was Chinese actor Jet Li, who made his first American-made film debut in Lethal Weapon 4 and went on to star in Kiss of the Dragon, Romeo Must Die and this dimension-hopping cop movie. Starring as both the hero and villain - the last two variants who have absorbed the energy from their murdered counterparts - Li fa...
Jun 26, 2024•51 min•Ep. 681
Nothing says summer like a road trip movie, so we're setting off for California in this 1986 cult thriller. Things get interesting in West Texas when a young man picks up a mysterious hitchhiker who turns out to be an insane serial killer. Starring Rutger Hauer, C. Thomas Howell, and Jennifer Jason Leigh, this flick has more twists than a mountain road, but it lacked one thing when it premiered: an audience. Yes, it grossed even less than its $7.9 million dollar budget, but yet somehow it earned...
Jun 19, 2024•53 min•Ep. 680
To commemorate the 70th anniversary of the first Godzilla film, Japanese movie studio Toho unleashed a new installment in its historic franchise last year. Set in Japan in the days following World War II, the film serves a prequel of sorts to the 1954 film, introducing a smaller - yet still destructive - version of the kaiju. Led by a dishonored kamikaze pilot, a group of Japanese veterans and ordinary citizens must stand up to Godzilla when the government fails to act. Written and directed by T...
Jun 12, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 679
