if there's one win you can count on next weekend at the oscars, it's jane campion becoming only the third woman in nearly 100 years to win best director. in honor of this depressing statistic and campion's legendary 35 year career, we're looking back at two of her biggest critical misfires that aren't the misunderstood masterpiece "in the cut." first up, it's campion's 1996 follow-up to her oscar-winning "the piano" with the nicole kidman-led "the portrait of a lady" followed by the 1999 cult co...
Mar 18, 2022•1 hr 22 min•Season 3Ep. 3
for the next three weeks, we're showing love to some of this years oscar nominees and looking back at some of their biggest critical and financial misfires. this week, two of this years best actor nominees (and two of the biggest stars on the planet) go head to head in a pair of movies that would have crushed in the 90s. first up, it's 2 time academy award winner and 3 time podcast MVP denzel washington in his oscar nominated performance as the titual "roman j. israel, esq." after that, we're lo...
Mar 11, 2022•1 hr 20 min•Season 3Ep. 2
When Roger Ebert gave Tom Green's unhinged feature debut "Freddy Got Fingered" a rare zero star review, he famously said "This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels." He added "The day may come when "Freddy Got Fingered" is seen as a milestone of neo-surrealism. The day may never come when it is seen as funny." Well, it'...
Dec 31, 2021•1 hr 21 min•Season 2Ep. 35
For the penultimate episode in our Comedy in the 2000s miniseries, we're diving into the rotten filmography of one of the biggest comedic superstars of the decade: Jack Black . First up, it's the unhinged 2001 buddy/revenge comedy "Saving Silverman" wherein Black co-stars alongside Steve Zahn as two thirds of a Neil Diamond cover band that kidnap their best friend's ( Jason Biggs ) manipulative girlfriend ( Amanda Peet ) in hopes of setting him up with a circus acrobat turned nun ( Amanda Detmer...
Dec 17, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Season 2Ep. 34
DuJour means friendship. DuJour means family. DuJour means seatbelts. And most importantly, DuJour means podcast. Illustrator and graphic designer Ella Talkin joins us this week to discuss a pair of early 2000s feminist comedies that updated their respective properties to the candy-colored MTV era of filmmaking. First up, it's the millennial sleepover classic and pop culture satire, "Josie and the Pussycats" starring Rachael Leigh Cook, Rosario Dawson and Tara Reid as the titular Pussycats, foll...
Dec 10, 2021•1 hr 41 min•Season 2Ep. 33
Our Comedy in the 2000s retrospective wouldn't be complete without a healthy dose of transphobia and lighthearted racism! This week on the podcast, we're taking on a pair of stoner comedies that defined the decade's obsession with buddy comedies steeped in gay panic. First up it's "Dude, Where's My Car?" featuring a pre-" Punk'd" Ashton Kutcher and pre- "Bulletproof Monk" Seann William Scott as a pair of intensely stupid stoners who find themselves immersed in an alien invasion as they search fo...
Dec 03, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Season 2Ep. 23
While comedy in the 90s and 2000s was dominated by male superstars like Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler and the rise of Judd Apatow , studios were slowly warming to the idea that... women can be funny...? This radical concept was put to work a few times throughout the 2000s, but no movie dominated sleepovers in the early aughts quite like "Miss Congeniality." The Sandra Bullock -starring rom-com/action comedy became an instantly quotable hit amongst millennials and went on to make over $250 million at ...
Nov 26, 2021•1 hr 13 min•Season 2Ep. 31
For the second installment of Rotten Comedy in the 2000s, we're checking in with two of the biggest comedy heavyweights of their generation. After dominating comedy in the 90s, Adam Sandler and Jim Carrey were riding high and cashing in on their blank checks in the new millennium. First up, it's the Farrely Brothers follow-up to the massively successful "There's Something About Mary," where the directors re-teamed with Carrey to tackle mental health and cucking with the bi-polar comedy "Me, Myse...
Nov 19, 2021•1 hr 37 min•Season 2Ep. 30
We’re still steeped in 2000s nostalgia here at the podcast as we kick off our seven week retrospective on comedy in the aughts. An era that began with an overflow of post- "There's Something About Mary" gross-out comedy before transitioning into frat-bro antics in the wake of movies like " Old School" and " Wedding Crashers," before the reign of Apatow exploded in the latter half of the decade with "bromance" comedies like " Knocked Up" and "Superbad." We're kicking off the miniseries with a pai...
Nov 12, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Season 2Ep. 29
Halloween weekend is finally upon us, which means our five week descent into Horror in the 2000s has come to a close. We couldn’t think of a better way to wrap up our miniseries than by checking in on what two of Hollywood’s most prolific boogeymen were up to at the turn of the millennium. Actor Morgan Maher returns to the podcast to discuss 2001’s notoriously bad 10th installment in the “Friday the 13th” series, “Jason X” (a.k.a. the one where Jason goes to space), as well as “Halloween: Resurr...
Oct 29, 2021•1 hr 37 min•Season 2Ep. 28
The slasher sub-genre was revitalized in 1996 with Wes Craven’s “Scream,” ushering in a whole new era of self-aware slasher films steeped in irony. By the early 2000s though, the genre was on life support yet again. Today, we’re taking a look back at some of the last of the WB -approved era of slasher films with two campy horror flicks that come so, so close to satirizing the genre as “Scream” did in the late 90s. First up, it’s the return of podcast MVP Brittany Murphy in the 2000 cult favorite...
Oct 22, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Season 2Ep. 27
While torture porn and hard-R reboots of 70s classics were capturing the mood of the Bush-era, the PG-13 horror movie was still thriving throughout the 2000s. After the success of M. Night Shyamalan at the turn of the century, as well as the emergence of Americanized J-horror adaptations throughout the aughts, studios began churning out PG-13 thrillers that were lighter on gore and gratuitous nudity and heavier on jump scares and twists. But not all those films managed to cross over with critics...
Oct 08, 2021•1 hr 20 min•Season 2Ep. 25
“I don’t change my style for anybody. Pussies do that.” - Michael Bay This week on the show, we close out our four week retrospective on post-9/11 cinema with what might be the most American film ever made: Michael Bay's "Bad Boys 2." A movie that not only reinvigorated director Michael Bay after his failed attempt to make a more classical wartime romance with “Pearl Harbor,” but also inadvertently reprogrammed audience’s expectations for action movies in the decades to come. A portal into the m...
Sep 24, 2021•1 hr 30 min•Season 2Ep. 23
When discussing the pantheon of the best actor/director collaborations in film, you rarely hear about Denzel Washington and Tony Scott . From 1995 until Scott's untimely death in 2012, the pair worked together on five of the best action films of the 90s and 2000s. While Denzel is one of our most beloved and acclaimed movie stars, Scott long lived in the shadow of his brother, Ridley, mostly written off by critics as a technician and hack. Today on the podcast, we're looking back at their underra...
Sep 17, 2021•1 hr 32 min•Season 2Ep. 22
It’s been 20 years since 9/11 and for this monumental anniversary, we’re paying tribute to two of America’s bravest soldiers: Xander Cage and Bob Lee Swagger. For this jam-packed, very special episode of Rotten Rewind in the 2000s, we’re joined by actor/writer/Swagger Head Morgan Phillips, as well as cinematographer and our in-house 9/11 specialist, Jake Ures, to look back on the cinematic landscape during the War on Terror. This week, we’ll be discussing the 2002 Monster Energy Drink James Bond...
Sep 11, 2021•1 hr 54 min•Season 2Ep. 21
We’re kicking off our monster-sized 2000s Retrospective with what might be the most notorious critical and financial bomb of the decade: Martin Brest’s accidental swan song and the film that might have single-handedly ended the first iteration of Bennifer , “Gigli.” A sensationally weird miscalculation of epic proportions, “Gigli” is the worst film you’ve probably never seen. So, does “Gigli” live up to its reputation? Does anyone walk away from this fiasco unscathed? Was there any version of th...
Aug 27, 2021•1 hr 24 min•Season 2Ep. 19
The tumultuous career of Lindsay Lohan has experienced some of the highest high's and lowest "Loh's" of any young actor we've seen. This week on the show, we're looking back on some of the more pivotal Loh's in Lohan's career: the notoriously rotten "I Know Who Killed Me" and her 2013 soft-comeback, "The Canyons." We're thrilled to be joined again by Olivia Willke, who has come on to defend these Lohan misfires, particularly the Paul Schrader-directed and Bret Easton Ellis-penned "Canyons," whic...
Aug 20, 2021•1 hr 41 min•Season 2Ep. 18
Hollywood filmmaking peaked in 1993 when actor turned director Tony Bill and stuntman Tom Sierchio teamed up to give America the love story they had been waiting for since the birth of cinema: one in which a small town waitress with terrible taste in men settles for the mentally impaired dishwasher with the heart of a baboon who follows her home and watches her sleep. That’s right, there is a real movie called “Untamed Heart” in which Christian Slater plays a stalker/dishwasher/ferocious readr w...
Aug 13, 2021•1 hr 54 min•Season 2Ep. 17
M. Night Shyamalan has had one of the most fascinating, unexpected career trajectories of our lifetime. Over the course of twenty years, Shyamalan has garned Academy Award nominations and billions in global box office while being hailed as the next Spielberg before nearly being laughed out of Hollywood after a series of critical and financial flops. In the last several years, Shyamalan has been experiencing something of a career revival and with his latest movie "Old" opening to number one despi...
Aug 06, 2021•2 hr 5 min•Season 2Ep. 16
"It's never goodbye" - Dominic Toretto Our Fast Saga comes to an end this week as we look back at the final rotten installments in the series: 2009's soft reboot "Fast & Furious" and the most recent "F9." Is "Fast & Furious" still the most forgettable, but necessary installment in the franchise? Is "F9" a return to form after the disappointing "Fate of the Furious" ? What disturbing haircut will they give Charlize Theron for the final film? Who's the MVP of the Family Cookouts? And most ...
Jul 30, 2021•1 hr 41 min•Season 2Ep. 15
Everybody thought "2 Fast 2 Furious" sank the "Fast" franchise for good in 2003. Vin Diesel turned down $25 million to return to the series so he could go off and make another franchise ( "xXx" ) with director Rob Cohen . Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster were out. Even Ja Rule turned down half a million dollars to reprise his role. One thing the sequel did have though: Academy Award nominated director John Singleton. Bringing along his "Baby Boy" breakout, Tyrese Gibson , Singleton steere...
Jul 23, 2021•59 min•Season 2Ep. 13
If "2 Fast 2 Furious" was a disappointing, but still financially successful sequel, "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" was the death rattle of a franchise dying young. Or so that's what so many thought when Justin Lin's high school/fish out of water spin on the series was released in 2006. In what might be the most 2006 movie ever made, Lin transported audiences to Tokyo and subbed out the angelic crazy ass white boy Brian O'Conner for a troubled high school student with a receding hairline...
Jul 23, 2021•1 hr 11 min•Season 2Ep. 14
It's hard to believe it's been 20 years since we were first introduced to Dominic Toretto and his family, but this week on the podcast we're kicking off our month long retrospective of one of the most successful film franchises of all time: "The Fast and the Furious." What began as "Point Break" with cars has now become a lucrative nine-film franchise that has seen names like Dwayne Johnson, Charlize Theron and John Cena join the mix as the Toretto Family has graduated from boosting cars and hij...
Jul 09, 2021•1 hr 39 min•Season 2Ep. 12
After four weeks, we’re saying goodbye to our Queer & Rotten series by paying tribute to one of queer cinema’s most beloved filmmakers, Todd Haynes . We’re excited to be joined once again by Kae Whalen to discuss Haynes’ ambitious third feature, “Velvet Goldmine” starring Christian Bale, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Toni Collette and Ewan McGregor (along with his penis *and* asshole!) We look back at the faux-biopic that shines a light on the glam rock scene in London during the 70s and the bisexua...
Jun 25, 2021•1 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 11
For our third installment of Rotten & Queer , we're thrilled to be joined by actor and flamenco dancer Adrian Elizondo to discuss one of Pedro Almodóvar's rare critical misfires, the 1991 mystery, High Heels and the 1995 cult classic To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar... starring Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes and podcast favorite John Leguizamo as a trio of drag queens on the road. Were the critics right in decrying High Heels as minor Almodóvar ? Why do so many people like to ...
Jun 18, 2021•1 hr 15 min•Season 2Ep. 10
For our second installment of Queer & Rotten, we're heading back to 1980 to dissect one of the most controversial movies of the last 40 years: William Friedkin's queer-panic serial killer thriller "Cruising," featuring one of last truly restrained Al Pacino performances. A film that was mired in controversy from the moment it was announced, Friedkin's film became the first studio-funded thriller to set its sights on the queer S&M community. Protests from the New York queer community thro...
Jun 11, 2021•1 hr 21 min•Season 2Ep. 9
The day has finally come that Rotten Rewind puts some fucking respect on Gerard Butler's name. The Scottish actor has played Dracula and The Phantom of the Opera, he's headlined apocalyptic thrillers and gone toe to toe doing Shakespeare with Ralph Fiennes . Today on the podcast though, we're looking at two very different periods in Butler's career: his late 2000s rom-com phase and his current status as Most Divorced Action Star in America. We're joined by actor, writer and devoted Butler stan, ...
May 28, 2021•1 hr 30 min•Season 2Ep. 7
We're celebrating big budget body horror this week on the podcast by revisiting two of the most bonkers movies that ever slipped through the cracks of some of Hollywood's biggest studios. Actress and designer Mariko Enkoji-Busch joins us to discuss the 2000 Jennifer Lopez thriller "The Cell" and the more recent studio bomb "A Cure for Wellness" from "The Ring" director Gore Verbinski. Are we just nostalgic for studios writing blank checks to visually ambitious directors to take their big swings ...
May 21, 2021•1 hr 41 min•Season 2Ep. 6
Can you believe it's been 20 years since Heath Ledger and Shannyn Sossamon donned 14th century attire for a David Bowie dance sequence in Brian Helgeland's jousting action comedy "A Knight's Tale" ? Or that it's been 15 years since Sofia Coppola followed up her Oscar win with an 80s New Wave-scored take on "Marie Antoinette" with Kirsten Dunst and fellow Coppola, Jason Schwartzman ? We feel old. For this special anniversary episode, we'll be joined by film and culture writer Abid Anwar to reeval...
May 14, 2021•1 hr 36 min•Season 2Ep. 5
This week on the podcast, we're looking back on two of the most polarizing films of the 2000s: Jonathan Glazer's mostly forgotten oddity "Birth" and Lars Von Trier's Criterion approved "Antichrist." Both genre-defying tales of grief with fully committed lead female performances from Nicole Kidman and Charlotte Gainsbourg , these controversial dramas divided critics and alienated audiences, but only one will be deemed a "misunderstood masterpiece" by your fearless hosts. Is it the one where Nicol...
May 07, 2021•1 hr 38 min•Season 2Ep. 4
