Cut and Splice: Reviewing, discussing and analyzing movies

We tackle James Gunn's trilogy, starting with an 18 minute review before getting into spoilers. Our friend Andrew joins us with some strong words against Vol. 2 and Jason coming to its defense.

We have a short discussion about the phenomena of disgraced actors from me too to other reasons why some talented people derail their careers and fall out of favor.

We start with a 36 minute review before getting into the spoilers of this one location showdown. We bring up Cillian Murphy and date the recording by wishing him that he'll get his Oscar for Oppenheimer.

In our Tropic Thunder discussion Matt brought up Babylon as an example of a movie that was about Hollywood, only with a very different approach. That got us talking about some uncomfortable movies and what they are trying to achieve.

We are joined by our friend and fellow podcaster Yusuf to discuss this irreverent and yet somehow reverent comedy. We start with a 36 minute review before we get into spoilers. We also discuss directors cuts vs. theatrical and the cultural significance of the movie and comedy in general as we move to more politically correct times.

In this short segment that didn't make the cut of our Oscars episode, we talk about Nolan's goal of continuing to make big films. Denis Villeneuve comes up as well regarding a silly comment he made and we also delve into a few directors that tend to go too far in their attempt to be unique.

We delve into some of the nominees, mention our favorites from the ones we've seen and sing Margot Robbie's praises. Quick correction: Anatomy of a Fall is mentioned to be a German film but it's a French film with a German actress.

In order to not derail our Oscars episode by delving too much into Barbie, we decided to give it a bonus episode before we deal with the rest of the movies.

We had a bit too much fun discussing this over the top movie. We start with a 27 minute review before getting into the themes and bloody details.

We took a few minutes to bring up our favorite westerns and discuss the genre as a whole.

We start with an 18 minute review of this intimate yet exciting western from Kevin Costner before getting into spoilers. We also get to discuss some of the ways in which the west actually was, compared to how it was presented in many westerns.

We have a short discussion about movies that should not be remade and give examples of remakes that were ill advised, as well as some movies that could be remade.

Our musician friend Mike Maye joins us for a discussion about this film which tracks the rise to fame of some of the most influential African American musicians and artists of the 50's and 60's. We give a 32 minute review before getting into spoilers.

Another meme, another discussion. This one took us in the direction of exploring the state of comedy in these times of censorship and self censorship.

This week, Jason's pick takes us to the world of tank warfare between the Germans and Soviets in WWII. We give a 23 minute review before getting into spoilers and dive deeper into all that is wrong and some that is right about this Russian extravaganza.

In this final episode of Israel month, we talk about antisemitism and as a whole the way history is relayed in movies, bringing up movies such as Oppenheimer and Gettysburg. We also talk about the generational divide in opinions and leadership.

This was recorded prior to the events on October 7th and was due to be released much later, but we felt it was appropriate to release it after Waltz with Bashir given the situation. We give a 25 minute review before getting into spoilers and along the way discuss some of the history regarding the wars of Israel.

In one of our last recordings, Gil took some time to give details on how it felt being in Israel when the war broke out on October 7th and what it was like trying to make it out of there.

This is part of our month long focus on the conflict with another movie coming up as well as further discussion about the issue in another bonus episode.

In an unplanned coincidence, the next movie in our pipeline is a self reflective Israeli movie dealing with an aspect of the conflict in the middle east. We give a 21 minute review before getting into spoilers. We mostly avoid getting too deep into a political discussion, something we fail more so in an upcoming episode.

Our Minority Report episode went so long and in different directions that it made sense to make this second part a bonus. Here we delve into Cruise's career but begin by finalizing some thoughts about Minority Report while discussing some of the philosophy and elements and how they compare to other books and movies. The universe of Dune is brought up as well as Forest Gump and Demolition Man.

We tackle another Spielberg with our friend Andrew joining us. We start with a 27 minute review before getting into the spoilers and details of this complicated dystopian affair.

Our Primer discussion got us talking about the various stand out ultra low budget movies of the past such as Pi, Following, Clerks, El Mariachi and others.

We tackle another mind bending time travel movie and provide a 15 minute review before getting into spoilers.

Part of our Thin Red Line discussion got us on a short tangent about Voice Over in movies.

In our first sanctioned episode of sorts, our friend LaJuan, who knows Terrence Malick, joins us for a discussion about this art house war movie. He also notified him about us discussing it and got his blessing. We give a 17 minute review before getting into spoilers.

Jason shares a meme that made the rounds where you have to pick one actor to disappear along with all their work between Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Sam Jackson, Eddie Murphy, Will Smith and Laurence Fishburne.

We had too much fun with this twist of a movie and also added a gimmick where Gil watched the last twist live before giving his reaction. We still kept it spoiler free for the first 19 minutes for those who haven't seen it and want a review only.

Our Licorice Pizza episode took us into a discussion about PTA's and other directors' way of moving the camera and choosing a shooting format for the look of their films.

Sparks fly again as Jason shares his distaste for PTA's latest while Matt and Gil do their best to defend it. We start with an 18 minute review and rankings of PTA's films before getting into spoilers.

Matt is off to project Oppenheimer with IMAX and we use the opportunity to ask some questions and discuss various movie presentations.

Matt chokes up several times while discussing this sad but life affirming tale about how life was like in East Germany. We give a 19 minute review for those who haven't seen it before getting into spoilers. We also discuss briefly how this movie beat out Pan's Labyrinth for best foreign film at The Oscars.

A short discussion we stumbled onto, while talking about Brando in The Godfather, about some of the greatest actors of all time and their different techniques.

We give a 17 minute review of the first two Godfathers and then delve into the details in an attempt to settle which is the better movie. Along the way we mildly spoil Star Wars and Game of Thrones, as well as bring up the various spoofs that were inspired by the franchise.

We talk movies adapted from other source materials including other movies. Along the way we discuss and mildly spoil the ending to Watchmen, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Fight Club and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

We didn't intend to make this a double episode but in talking The Lost City of Z, the stars kept beckoning us to compare it to Ad Astra. We give a 20 minute review before going into spoilers on both movies.

A portion of our Northman discussion led us into talking about times when certain parts call for a specific body type and how that tends to apply to men and women.

We give a 16 minute review before getting deep with spoilers on this assault of a movie. We get to talk some Hamlet/Simba comparisons as well as Robert Eggers filmography this far.

This time we draw inspiration from an article by Screen Rant and discuss acting in Nolan films. Here is the link to the article which we bring up during the episode: https://screenrant.com/christopher-nolan-movies-best-performances-directed/#al-pacino-as-will-dormer-in-insomnia

Our friend Andrew joins us again for this lively debate about the merits of the MCU with a focus on the first Avengers movie.

We chase our A.I. episode with a short discussion about our favorites from Spielberg. We also touch on the subject of adaptations again in comparing movies to the books or short stories they are based on.

Our first Spielberg film is one that split viewers, especially with that infamous ending. We give a 13 minute review before getting into the spoiler filled details. Along the way we also mildly spoil other Sci-Fi stand outs Ex Machina, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner 2049. The discussion as expected also delved into our relationship to future AIs and the ethics that are involved.

In our RRR discussion we veered off for a few minutes to talk about the reputation Edward Zwick built for himself which lead us to discuss how important tone is in movies.

We start with a 23 minute spoiler free review before delving into this bombastically over the top movie.

We try to mostly stay on topic but Gil veers into a few great scenes and near the end we sing Mel Brooks' praises while mentioning some of his great opening scenes.

We compete with the running time of the actual ceremony while discussing most of the best picture nominees apart from "Triangle of Sadness" that sadly none of us saw in time for the recording.  

We also cover a few other categories and Matt slightly spoils "Little Children" towards the end, but it was too fun of an ending to "cut that part".

We veered off into a short discussion about Time Travel movies and decided to share it as its own little nugget.

We couldn't go more than 18 minutes of reviewing before we had to get into spoilers about this trip through time of a movie.

We have a discussion about prominent directors who started out as actors.

Sadly and humorously, our first botched incomplete recording is for a movie whose story doesn't completely resolve.

Yusuf, our film school friend and host of the podcast "In-Flight Entertainment", joins us for a 28 minute review before we get into the spoilers and what was left of the recording. Unfortunately the last portion of the episode didn't save correctly.

More reason to have him back again for another discussion cause this was a blast.

We delve into our favorite bad movies that we've enjoyed over the years. From the movies of Van Damme, Stallone and Schwarzenegger to many others.