Recorded 14 April 2024 This episode contains discussion of suicide and suicidal ideation during the Persona segment Sports fans, I know we've said this before, but this episode contains one of the toughest matchups we've encountered yet; that 122-minute runtime bears that out. We also get to talk about Wes Anderson for the first (only?) time. Also contained herein: both hosts' all-time Alien franchise power rankings, Derek's hottest Wes Anderson take, an attempt at cataloguing the many facets of...
Oct 07, 2024•2 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 39
Recorded on 23 February 2024 Derek must've angered one or another of the Computer Gods, because part of this episode was garbled beyond recognition. But never fear, sports fans! Thanks to Isabelle's considerable skills as an editrix, the seams on the episode are nary audible. So you will hear in the highest fidelity our intrepid hosts debate the pros and cons of your dad's favourite movie, Derek's favorite character actor joke, and of course, the entirety of Isabelle's online bullshit fire sale....
Jun 04, 2024•1 hr 45 min•Season 1Ep. 38
Recorded on 24 November 2023 Sports fans, Isabelle brought the thunder with her reading this week, which threatened to swallow this episode whole, so to speak. But as all episodes must, we eventually get to the matter at hand, which in this case includes one of the most whiplash-inducing matchups in the bracket thus far. We also have some metagaming, a lot of fawning over the classics, and a short discussion of what we mean when we call something "good." In short, another classic episode! This w...
Apr 02, 2024•1 hr 34 min•Season 1Ep. 37
Recorded on 15 September 2023 Well that goofball Derek up and forgot to upload the new episode last week, so can chastise him via your medium of choice. Sorry about that! But here it is, one week late but no worse for wear. Sports fans, we invite you to take a trip back in time with us, a trip back to the fall of 2023, where your intrepid hosts dusted off their microphones and open-source audio software and recorded an episode of this very podcast for the first time in over two years. This is wo...
Mar 19, 2024•1 hr 23 min•Season 1Ep. 36
tap tap Is this thing on? Your eyes and ears do not deceive you, sports fans! We are back from our long hibernation, but instead of overwhelming you with takes so hot they break the Scoville scale, our intrepid hosts return with a super-sized life update spectacular, filling you in on the details of what exactly they've been doing with their lives since mid-2021. Spoiler alert: a lot of hobbies were indulged in and a lot of media was consumed. Derek and Isabelle tell stories, recommend art, and ...
Feb 27, 2024•2 hr 37 min
Now I'm not one for boasting, sports fans, but this one is a corker. We have an instant-classic opening bit, a huge upset ( wink ), and an all-time difficult opening round matchup pitting two masterpieces that have a surprising amount in common despite the 75 years that separate them. Also Isabelle makes her co-host laugh the hardest he ever laughs, and Derek does a dramatic reading of an old film review of his. In short, another classic episode! This week's matchups: Reservoir Dogs v. The Bandi...
Aug 10, 2021•Season 1Ep. 35
NOTE : This episode contains discussions of suicide. Sometimes the Universe gives you a gift, and sometimes that gift is a poisoned chalice. Sports fans, I have to tell you, our second matchup in this episode has no business happening in Round 1. But the Bracket Gods are capricious, and they will do as they please. In between discussing four very good-to-masterful movies, our intrepid hosts take the time to talk about Oddworld , arena football, #WhiteBoySummer, bar bands, and noted Isabelle recl...
Jul 06, 2021•1 hr 51 min•Season 1Ep. 34
Sports fans, as we being a-tumblin' down towards the end of round one, we encounter in these matchups a couple of mirrored pairs. We have two movies that our intrepid hosts revisit for the first time in a long time, and two masterpieces of their form, each close to one host's heart. Who will gracefully bow out? Who will live another day to possibly become the Greatest Movie of All Time*? What the fuck is up with Cluck Klosterman? The answer to these questions, dear listener, is yes. This week's ...
May 04, 2021•Season 1Ep. 33
In the words of the great American philosopher Jon Bon Jovi, we're halfway there! Well, we're halfway through the first round of this white elephant we call the Middlebow Madness bracket, which means we're really only a quarter of the way there. In any case, our intrepid hosts take a load off and contemplate the road travelled between episodes 17 and 32. We name some superlatives, do a little metagaming, and crack a few jokes about spinach and morgellons. In short, sports fans: another classic e...
Apr 21, 2021
It was bound to happen sooner or later, sports fans: we finally cracked two hours. Naturally, this episode is packed to the gills with tangents about crawdads and Twitter Jail and Derek's dubious acting career. Not that there isn't any movie talk at all: Isabelle has a galaxy-brain take to end all galaxy-brain takes regarding one of our competitors, and Derek, well, he mostly just puts on his Film Bro(tm) hat on for this one. But any way you slice it, once these two matches are through, we will ...
Mar 31, 2021•2 hr 5 min•Season 1Ep. 32
Sports fans, a good podcast episode is only as good as its digressions, and this one has several (shocking, I know). What do our intrepid hosts talk about that isn't the four movies listed below? Isabelle's corny jokes! Derek's pet theory about musical theatre! One of them reads a little Faulkner! Which host, you ask? Listen to yet another classic episode on the road to crowning The Greatest Movie of All Time* and find out! Punctuation!!! This week's matchups: Witness for the Prosecution v. Rang...
Jan 27, 2021•1 hr 37 min•Season 1Ep. 31
Sports fans, we nominally talk movies about on the show, but you know what else crops up a lot in this, our landmark 30th episode and our first missive of 2021? Racism in Hollywood, and piss. Lots of it. Not necessarily in that order. We go short on some masterpieces and long on what Derek loves to call "rich texts." There's even a little metagaming going on. All in all, another classic episode on the road to crowning The Greatest Movie of All Time*. This week's matchups: The Kid v. Gone With th...
Jan 13, 2021•Season 1Ep. 30
Sports fans, you are getting four podcasts for the price of one this week! In addition to the usual movie bracket-based shenanigans, we have a QAnon-skewering politics podcast at the top, a short true-crime missive in the middle, and a full-on miniature games podcast to close the whole thing out. Digressive? Us? Perish the thought. The march towards crowning the Greatest Movie of All Time* continues! This week's matchups: To Kill a Mockingbird v. Gran Torino Psycho v. La La Land Isabelle's favou...
Dec 29, 2020•1 hr 50 min•Season 1Ep. 29
Running parallel to our intrepid hosts' quest for the Greatest Movie of All Time* is their quest to make each episode of the show longer and more digressive than the previous one. And sports fans? Both quests are humming along quite nicely. So what treasures does this episode contain? The residual evils of pandemic capitalism! An NBC fantasy miniseries no one remembers! A song lyric open mic! And oh yeah, two of the greatest masterpieces of world cinema going head-to-head in a first-round matchu...
Dec 15, 2020•1 hr 43 min•Season 1Ep. 28
A little bit of inside baseball for you, sports fans: when Isabelle sent Derek the edited version of the show, she titled it "The One Where It Goes Off the Rails." What could possibly have made the longest episode of the show to date disintegrate in such a way? Could it have something to with the giant detours (Sasha Grey: Cinephile, the tragedy of Kelsey Grammer, the "Reverse Roger Deakins," a class project gone horribly wrong, the legacy of Current TV) that our intrepid duo take while talking ...
Nov 24, 2020•Season 1Ep. 27
It's been a long, long six months, sports fans, but the show is in fact back from the dead! We pick up right where we left off, which is to say we have a long X-rated digression right at the top and then remember that there are movies to talk about. Four movies to be precise. Four flicks enter, two flicks leave! It's like every other episode, but with different discursive tangents about pop culture ephemera! We're back, baby! This week's matchups: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade v. Room The M...
Nov 11, 2020•1 hr 34 min•Season 1Ep. 26
We’re a little late, but no worse for wear, sports fans! This time around, our intrepid hosts ponder whether the crew of Sunrise actually got a pig drunk, the concept of audience manipulation in cinema, and contend with Derek’s wild, earth-shattering take about Ridley Scott. Plus, a new chapter in the Untitled Isabelle Arf Fan Fiction Project (that I swear Derek didn’t sandbag; there were some recording shenanigans at play, I promise). In short, another classic episode! This week’s matchups: Ama...
May 22, 2020•1 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 25
Hot off our viewing of Judgment at Nuremberg , Isabelle schools us on the work of German political theorist Carl Schmitt and how they intersect (or don’t) with Stanley Kramer’s film. NOTE: It was raining during the recording of this episode, so please forgive the sound quality. And yes, Isabelle knows that “Weimar” is pronounced with a “V,” she was just very tired. Political Theology Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty by Carl Schmitt – See the bracket [SPOILERS AHEAD] Drop us a line: mi...
May 05, 2020•24 min
Sports fans, this one’s got everything you can ask for: weird bits, charlatanry, amphibian Messiahs, v i b e s , nostalgia, smart stuff, dumb stuff, and what is probably the single most shocking scene in any film we’ve covered so far. Here’s a hint: it has something to do with the movie with the word “Nuremberg” in the title. in the bracket. In short, another classic episode! This week’s matchups: Heat vs. Judgment at Nuremberg The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King vs. Dog Day Afternoon ...
May 05, 2020•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 24
Sports fans, Derek knows he fucked up the number of the show in the intro, don’t worry about it. But despite that rocky start, our intrepid hosts navigate between the twin poles of Wild Digressions (conspiracy theories! the recorded output of the Decemberists!) and Hard-Hitting Film Criticism (the lingering effects of propaganda! agreeing in bad faith! the Cable Hall of Fame career of Wolfgang Petersen!). Plus, chapter 2 of the Untitled Isabelle Arf Fan Fiction Project. In short, another classic...
Apr 21, 2020•1 hr 22 min•Season 1Ep. 23
We’re back with a vengeance, sports fans! We talk about the why of the dudebro canon, director market correction, the funny side of Ingmar Bergman, and the motion picture with the credits that have perhaps aged the worst of all the movies we’ve covered so far. Plus, Isabelle introduces a new node in her increasingly elaborate web of bits. In short, another classic episode! This week’s matchups: Snatch v. Wild Strawberries The Usual Suspects v. La haine – See the bracket [SPOILERS AHEAD] Drop us ...
Apr 07, 2020•1 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 22
Sorry for the radio silence, sports fans! Derek and Isabelle are here to bring you to up to speed with the goings-on in their lives, the ongoing pandemic, and gauge interest in a potential fan Discord (among other things). – See the bracket [SPOILERS AHEAD] Drop us a line: middlebrowmadness@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter: @middlebrowpod Follow Isabelle on Twitter: @spacejamfan Follow Derek on Twitter: @derek_g...
Apr 01, 2020•20 min
Sports fans, I’m not going to lie to you: thins get real blue and real weird real fast in this on. If this pod had a rating, it’d be a hard R. It’s also an episode that swings wildly between the twin poles of “tangential bullshit” (left-of-centre fetishes and 90s rom-coms where one of the leads would later come out as gay) and “actual movie stuff” (a discussion how 2001 aged so well, two very different reads on Blade Runner 2049). In short, another classic episode! CWs for kink, sexual assault, ...
Jan 15, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 21
We’re back, sports fans, and we’re ringing in the new year! Only we don’t make reference to this fact at all, since we recorded this some time ago. Our intrepid hosts experience both sides of the quality coin in this one, from baffling slogs to baffling successes. There’s also talk of Baz Luhrmann and chili recipes. In other words, another classic episode! CW for reference to sexual violence, racialized violence, other kinds of violence, police brutality, Nazis, and general unpleasantness. This ...
Jan 01, 2020•1 hr 12 min•Season 1Ep. 20
Our march towards the championship match chugs on, sports fans! Our intrepid hosts cover everything you’ve come to expect from the show: Sex! Metagaming! Personality quizzes! They also go deep on three of the funnest films they’ve covered so far on the pod, and, uh… one that is decidedly less fun. We’ll let you figure out which ones are which. This week’s matchups: North by Northwest v. Life of Brian Grave of the Fireflies v. Rush – See the bracket [SPOILERS AHEAD] Drop us a line: middlebrowmadn...
Sep 04, 2019•1 hr 11 min•Season 1Ep. 19
Hard swerve! Isabelle takes the reins in this solo minisode where she elaborates on the concept of normative statements and how they apply in our criticism of the 2005 feature film V for Vendetta. NOTE: AT 4:39, Isabelle says “descriptive” when she meant “prescriptive.” – Motherfuckin’ show notes ! 83: The Unchecked Conservative Ideology of US Media’s ‘Fact-Check’ Verticals — Citations Needed Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher — Zer0 Books Hbomberguy — YouTube Philosophy Tube — YouTube...
Aug 07, 2019•21 min
It’s time to get into the spirit of giving, sports fans! Isabelle gives Derek a gift! The Middlebrow Madness will give you a bonus episode! We give some searing hot takes on some beloved classics! And best of all question mark? , we give you CWs for racism, CSA, and transphobia. It’s another classic episode of the best independent bracket-based film criticism show in the known universe. This week’s matchups: Scarface v. V for Vendetta The Silence of the Lambs v. The Wizard of Oz – Oh shit, it’s ...
Aug 07, 2019•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 18
Break time is over, sports fans! We actually talk a lot about music at the top of this one. (Tangents? On a podcast?! My word!) But fear not, we resume our dizzying climb to the top of the bracket in short order. This time around, we talk about the limitations of charm, the value of human experiences, and our relationship with good ol’ QT. We also field some viewer mail for good measure. This week’s matchups: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind v. Kill Bill Vol. 1 Terminator 2: Judgment Day v....
Jul 24, 2019•1 hr 5 min•Season 1Ep. 17
Sports fans! We are 25% of the way up the bracket, and so we’re planting a marker and taking stock of how far we’ve come. We talk about out picks, mourn the fallen, pick some superlatives, and we answer some 100% genuine grain-fed grade-A viewer mail. Stray topics include the films of S. Craig Zahler, cinematic crushes, and the fine art of metagaming. – See the bracket [SPOILERS AHEAD] Drop us a line: middlebrowmadness@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter: @middlebrowpod Follow Isabelle on Twitter: @s...
Jul 09, 2019•55 min
We’re back (a dinosaur’s story), and we come bearing the gifts of CWs for sexual assault, rape, and CSA! But also, we’re talking about some great movies, including one of those slippery, queasy Awesome Movies Directed By a Reprehensible Person, and one movie that’s kind of a dud. Also, now we’re 25% of the way done with the first round, hooray! Oh yeah, and just so we don’t get any emails or tweets about it: Isabelle does in fact mean to say Sam Spade (the famous fictional detective), and not Sa...
Jun 25, 2019•1 hr 10 min•Season 1Ep. 16
