We're celebrating Oscar weekend on the podcast by discussing two gritty youth dramas with a prestige bent that failed to resonate with the Academy and critics. First up, it's Oscar winner Leonardo DiCaprio's 1995 breakout indie drama "The Basketball Diaries" where we get to see a young Leo shoot up and get public restroom blowjobs from old men. After that, we're rewinding to the not-so-distant past with this years Tom Holland starring "Cherry" from Marvel's #1 in-house directors, The Russo Broth...
Apr 23, 2021•1 hr 38 min•Season 2Ep. 2
We're back and we're kicking off this brand spankin' new season of Rotten Rewind with perhaps the most infamous rotten movie of all time: Paul Verhoeven's seminal camp masterpiece "Showgirls." Featuring a career-ending turn by Elizabeth Berkley, Kyle MacLachlan with a body double, Gina Gershon with a Southern accent, and Robert Davi sincerely delivering the line "What's it like not havin' guys cum on you?" You know the movie! You know the history! We're here to offer our take on it with Kae Whal...
Apr 16, 2021•1 hr 22 min•Season 2Ep. 1
We can't believe it's here but today marks our first ever season finale. We're going out with a bang - or a Spark - by discussing two of the most iconic millennial romances, written by multi-millionaire Nicholas Sparks. First up, it's the Shane West/Mandy Moore leukemia love story "A Walk to Remember" featuring a score by Moore and emo Christian rockstars Switchfoot. After that, we're going all in on the grand daddy tearjerker "The Notebook," starring former real life couple and current Oscar no...
Feb 26, 2021•1 hr 47 min•Season 1Ep. 42
The 90s and 2000s might be the most ubiquitous time for romantic comedies, but they also gave us some of the most truly unhinged entries the genre had to offer. This week, we're discussing a pair of malicious magazine themed rom-coms that pair a couple of successful sociopaths and unemployed losers as they search for love in the big city (and Boston)! Is the 2003 box office smash "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" regressive and awkward in 2021? Is the genre wackiness of "What's Your Number?" an unl...
Feb 19, 2021•1 hr 53 min•Season 1Ep. 41
TW: This episode does contain discussion of rape, abuse and domestic violence. This week, we're taking a look back at a pair of divisive teen true crime dramas: the sweaty, lurid Florida-set thriller "Bully" from provocateur Larry Clark and Nick Cassavetes' San Fernando Valley-based drama "Alpha Dog." Both films were met with their own set of controversy upon release in the 2000s and both featured strong ensembles of up and coming teen actors at the time, ranging from Brad Renfro and Michael Pit...
Jan 22, 2021•1 hr 55 min•Season 1Ep. 37
In our most personal episode to date, we're serving up our thoughts on a pair of rotten restaurant industry movies: the 2005 gross-out comedy "Waiting" with a pre-Deadpool era Ryan Reynolds, Anna Faris and Justin Long, and the 2015 bad boy chef drama, "Burnt" starring Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller and Matthew Rhys. Is it possible to make a good restaurant movie, or is "Party Down" still the closest we'll ever get to capturing the industry? We'll be answering that question, along with discussions...
Jan 15, 2021•1 hr 34 min•Season 1Ep. 36
Since the holidays are over, we're back to our regularly scheduled programming. This week, we're evaluating two feminist themed rehabilitation dramas: the 1999 cult favorite "Girl, Interrupted" starring 90s royalty Winona Ryder, podcast favorite Brittany Murphy and an Academy Award winning performance by Angelina Jolie, as well as the underseen Mary Harron-directed take on the Manson murders, "Charlie Says." We're also thrilled as always to be joined by our favorite critic and resident "Charlie ...
Jan 08, 2021•1 hr 28 min•Season 1Ep. 35
As we put the nail in the coffin of 2020 and step into a new coffin a.k.a. 2021, we're celebrating two New Years cult classics: the 1980 ball dropper slasher "New Year's Evil" featuring an unhinged white dude embarking on a festive killing spree through Van Nuys, and the Gen-X 80s nostalgia fest "200 Cigarettes" starring a cast so stacked it can only be described as "The Thin Red Line" of broad studio comedies (Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson, Paul Rudd, Courtney Love, Christina Ricci, a...
Dec 30, 2020•1 hr 30 min•Season 1Ep. 34
For our final Rotten Holidays episode of the season, we'll be taking a look at a pair of dark holiday comedies that have no idea how dark they really are, featuring two undiagnosed psychopaths. First up, we're jumping back to 1996 when brand mania was taking over pop culture and Hollywood still thought Arnold Schwarzenegger could pass as a regular mid-western dad, to discuss the accidentally anti-capitalist unhinged family classic, "Jingle All the Way." After that, we're fast forwarding to the t...
Dec 23, 2020•1 hr 42 min•Season 1Ep. 33
We've gotten to the holiday horror portion of our Rotten Holidays series and we're looking at two seasonal slashers: the 1984 cult classic "Silent Night, Deadly Night" and the 2006 remake of "Black Christmas." If you watched the original "Black Christmas" and thought to yourself, "why isn't there any incest in this movie???" then Glen Morgan's eye-popping, severely jaundiced remake is the holiday slasher movie you've been looking for. We're also very excited to once again be joined by critic and...
Dec 16, 2020•1 hr 26 min•Season 1Ep. 32
It's gonna be a White Christmas this week because we're cozying up to a pair of mid-2000s star-studded holiday affairs: the familial dramedy "The Family Stone" featuring Sarah Jessica Parker as an uptight, homophobic working woman who is forced to spend the holidays with her boyfriend's toxic liberal family (Diane Keaton, Craig T. Nelson, Luke Wilson, Rachel McAdams) and the Nancy Meyers house swap romcom "The Holiday" featuring Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Jack Black as a bunch of r...
Dec 09, 2020•1 hr 37 min•Season 1Ep. 31
We're kicking off our five week Rotten Holidays series with two forgotten 2000s holiday heist thrillers that are *extremely* early 2000s. First up, it's John Frankhenheimer's swan song, "Reindeer Games," starring Ben Affleck, Charlize Theron and Gary Sinise in nu-metal cosplay as members of what might be the dumbest fucking crew to ever grace the big screen. After that, we're turning the thermostat down and taking a boozy nap with Harold Ramis' "The Ice Harvest," starring John Cusack and Billy B...
Dec 02, 2020•1 hr 24 min•Season 1Ep. 30
Fall in love with two seasonal rotten romances on this week's episode featuring filmmaker and musician William Breen. Join us as we look back on "Autumn in New York" starring Winona Ryder and Richard Gere, and "Sweet November" with Charlize Theron and Keanu Reeves, a pair of films that remind us that behind every mediocre man is a beautiful, dead woman who helped revive the .25 percent of his personality that contains empathy. "Autumn in New York" is streaming on HBOMax. "Sweet November" is stre...
Nov 25, 2020•1 hr 41 min•Season 1Ep. 29
For our second and final installment in our 1995 techno thriller series, we'll be plunging into the depths of VR Hell with the infamous Keanu Reeves bomb "Johnny Mnemonic" and the more obscure Denzel Washington/Russell Crowe serial killer thriller "Virtuosity." Would another actor have salvaged the bizarre humor of "Johnny Mnemonic?" Does the little known "Virtuosity" feature one of Crowe's best performances? What exactly does the cyborg dolphin at the end of "Johnny Mnemonic" do? Does it matter...
Nov 18, 2020•1 hr 10 min•Season 1Ep. 28
Five years before Y2K, internet paranoia was all the rage in Hollywood. For the next two weeks, we'll be looking back at four critically maligned techno thrillers that failed to reboot the cyberpunk sub-genre. For part one, we're joined by writer Kelsey Holmes to examine the cult classic "Hackers" starring Jonny Lee Miller, Angelina Jolie, Matthew Lillard and Jesse Bradford, as well as the Sandra Bullock "it could happen to you!" thriller "The Net." Did "Hackers" predict Gen-Z fashion? Did "The ...
Nov 11, 2020•1 hr 36 min•Season 1Ep. 27
It's election day and we're here to momentarily distract you from the hell we live in by discussing two rotten political films of the Bush era. First up is Chris Rock's forgotten 2003 directorial debut "Head of State" featuring Bernie Mac and a lot of old white people dancing to Nelly . After that, we're covering George W. Bush himself, by re-examining Oliver Stone's shockingly toothless biopic featuring the star-studded ensemble of Josh Brolin, Richard Dreyfuss, Thandie Newton, Elizabeth Banks,...
Nov 03, 2020•1 hr 23 min•Season 1Ep. 26
When podcast guest Jake Ures told us about his theory that the 2003 horror mash-up "Freddy vs Jason" was a 9/11 allegory, we knew we had to sit down and talk to him. As a bonus discussion this week, we'll be talking about the post 9/11 effect on pop culture - specifically, the horror genre. From "Freddy vs Jason" to the gritty reboots of "The Hills Have Eyes" and Rob Zombie's "Halloween" films, we'll be discussing some of the most rotten horror of the 2000s and how they reflected the cultural ze...
Oct 31, 2020•53 min•Season 1Ep. 26
Our finale of the Rotten Horrors series was originally intended to focus on a pair "threequels" in two of the most beloved horror franchises of all time: "The Exorcist" and "Halloween." Due to some technical difficulties, we had to redo the episode, this time focusing on just the third installment of John Carpenter's prolific series, "Halloween: Season of the Witch." Sitting down with first time guest, filmmaker Shawn Chiesa, we discuss the iconic score by Carpenter himself and the "Invasion of ...
Oct 31, 2020•44 min•Season 1Ep. 25
In 1998, Gus Van Sant was riding the wave of acclaim after his first Academy Award nomination and had studios knocking at his door. What did he decide to do? Well, he decided to remake Alfred Hitchock's iconic 1960 thriller "Psycho." Not only that, he decided to do it shot for shot. Starring Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates and Anne Heche as Marion Crane, featuring Julianne Moore, Viggo Mortensen and William H. Macy, Van Sant's remake was predictably panned. The typical response to the film was simp...
Oct 21, 2020•1 hr 38 min•Season 1Ep. 24
It's week 2 of Rotten Horrors and we're paying tribute two of the most iconic feminist horror allegories in recent memory: the 1996 cult favorite "The Craft" featuring Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell, Rachel True and Robin Tunney as teenage witches, and the 2009 Karyn Kusama/Diablo Cody body horror comedy "Jennifer's Body" featuring Megan Fox as the titular 'Jennifer,' as well as Amanda Seyfried and a Satan-worshipping Adam Brody. We're joined by podcast favorite Johnny Langan to discuss 90s goth qu...
Oct 14, 2020•1 hr 46 min•Season 1Ep. 23
All month long, we'll be immersed in some of the most rotten horror films we could get our hands on. For our first installment, we'll be taking a look back at one of the most influential and underrated cinematographers of his time, Ernest Dickerson. The man who helped cultivate the iconic Spike Lee look of the late 80s and early 90s turned to directing with his breakout 1992 hit "Juice," before turning his eye to more horror and action fare. Today we'll be looking at the 1990 underground Black v...
Oct 07, 2020•1 hr 11 min•Season 1Ep. 22
For our first double feature, we'll be diving into two notorious sci-fi bombs of the 2000s: Neveldine/Taylor's "Gamer" and Richard Kelly's "Southland Tales." Both films captured the post-9/11 zeitgeist, yet were frighteningly ahead of their time in how...
Sep 30, 2020•1 hr 26 min•Season 1Ep. 2
One of the most unpredictable and exciting leading men to come around in a generation, Tom Hardy has delivered some of the most unforgettable and daring performances of the last decade. This week, we're diving into two of the English actor's most divisive performances: his gonzo turn in the long-awaited buddy comedy/body horror superhero flick "Venom" and his most physically committed performance as gangster Al Capone in the shit-fueled nightmare "Capone." Joined by return guest Nick Laskin and ...
Sep 30, 2020•1 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 21
In 2010, Lee Daniels became the second Black director in history to be nominated for the Best Director Academy Award. That's right, the second in eight decades. Today on the podcast, we're diving into two of the history making director's two more critically maligned films: the 2005 assassin-cum-incestuous romance thriller "Shadowboxer" starring Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Helen Mirren as assassins/lovers/adopted mother and child, and the 2012 notorious Cannes Film Festival bomb, "The Paperboy" starrin...
Sep 23, 2020•1 hr 30 min•Season 1Ep. 20
It’s Joel Schumacher Day on the podcast! That means we’re taking a look back at two of his most maligned films that aren’t “Batman Forever” and “Batman & Robin.” First up is the 1990 medical thriller “Flatliners,” featuring the best looking med school students you’ve ever seen in Julia Roberts, Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Bacon and William Baldwin. After that, we’re switching reels to the 1999 Nicolas Cage-starring snuff thriller “8MM,” featuring a crop-topped Joaquin Phoenix, a sweaty, pistol ...
Sep 16, 2020•1 hr 25 min•Season 1Ep. 19
In our first episode back from a nine week descent into erotic madness, we're switching gears and looking back at two workplace romantic comedies featuring two superstars. First up is the 1992 classic "Boomerang," starring Eddie Murphy as a successful womanizer who meets his match in Robin Givens , followed by the 2018 "Working Girl" homage "Second Act," starring Jennifer Lopez, Leah Remini and Vanessa Hudgens. Does "Boomerang" still have that magic that's allowed it to endure for almost 30 year...
Sep 09, 2020•1 hr 8 min•Season 1Ep. 18
After nine long weeks submerged in the sweaty, sultry cinematic underworld of Erotic Thrillers, we've decided to host our the very first ever ICE PICK AWARDS. Dedicated to the very best and worst of Erotic Thrillers, we've asked you -- the FANS -- to help us pick the winners. So live from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood... we present the first annual Ice Picks.
Sep 02, 2020•58 min
All good things must come to an end. After nine sweaty weeks of motiveless femme fatales, cucked husbands, cage fucking and nipple clamps, we're ready to say goodbye to our Erotic Thriller Summer. Thankfully, we can't think of a better film to go out on than Jane Campion's criminally underrated, misunderstood masterpiece, "In the Cut." Starring Meg Ryan in a role that was supposed to catapult her into more serious fare, along with an up and coming Mark Ruffalo in a rare performance as a scumbag,...
Aug 26, 2020•1 hr 20 min•Season 1Ep. 17
In our penultimate episode in the Erotic Thriller Summer series, we're tackling one movie this episode, but it's a special one. We're joined by special guest Olivia Willke to talk about David Cronenberg's controversial 1996 erotic thriller "Crash," a.k.a. The Car Fucking Movie. A refreshingly bonkers break from the previous films we've been discussing on the series, "Crash" was met with boo's at the Cannes Film Festival, received massive backlash from critics, and even managed to almost get bann...
Aug 19, 2020•1 hr 17 min•Season 1Ep. 16
We're making our way into the dog days of summer, which means we're at the tail-end of the Erotic Thriller Summer series. For our latest, we're gonna be traveling to the wrong side of the tracks to see what a couple of 90s bad boy hunks are up to. First up, we're diving into the lesser-known Rebecca DeMornay stalker thriller, "Never Talk to Strangers," featuring a shirtless, ponytailed Antonio Banderas and a whole lot of cage fucking. After that, we're going back to Seattle for another early 90s...
Aug 12, 2020•1 hr 32 min•Season 1Ep. 15
