Colin Wessman

I love those oldies and hoagies, give me some beefcakes and cheesesteaks

Oscars Fortnight Day 6: Reds

Reds (1981)

The 54th Academy Awards (1982)
Nominations: 12
Wins: 3

Reds is the kind of Oscar-winning film that has been a bit forgotten over the years for reasons that are pretty easy to pinpoint. First, it’s one of the longer Best Picture nominees at 195 minutes, putting it just behind The Irishman in length, but still ahead of this year’s Drive My Car. It also isn’t the work of some revered auteur, as Warren Beatty has one of the strangest filmographies I can think of, with this being his most acclaimed film by a pretty wide margin. And while it does mostly earn its 3-plus hours with a scope that could certainly be considered epic, it feels a little too heady and political to fit into your traditional notions of what constitutes a big-screen epic. Continue reading →

The Pick: Batman & Robin

This time on The Pick, we take a break from Oscar talk to focus on that damn caped crusader who’s back in theaters again. After sharing some thoughts on The Batman, we delve into a deeper conversation about 1997’s Batman & Robin, a movie notorious for sinking the run of blockbusters that started with Tim Burton’s Batman. However, it’s a movie we have a soft spot for since it has been unfairly maligned over the years, as its decidedly campy take on the franchise now feels like a breath of icy fresh air compared to the unrelenting darkness of recent Batman. And come on, who can resist an unbelievably corny ice pun? Continue reading →

Oscars Fortnight Day 2: Gaslight

Gaslight (1944)

The 17th Academy Awards (1945)
Nominations: 7
Wins: 2

Gaslight is undoubtedly most famous for the phrase it coined that has gained more prominence in the past few years as disinformation and manipulation have become a bigger cultural force (fun stuff!). So much so that there was even an SNL sketch parodying the film from earlier this year, which falls into the category of “I’m not really sure who this is for” SNL sketches. Anyways, it’s not the first origin point of the phrase “gaslighting”, since George Cukor’s 1944 film is based on Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 play Gas Light as well as the 1940 British film adaptation that this Gaslight added Hollywood production values to. Still, it has remained perhaps the most famous iteration of this material due to Ingrid Bergman’s Oscar-winning performance of the story’s gaslit heroin, while the film itself also remains subtly unsettling. Continue reading →

Oscars Fortnight Day 1: Grand Hotel

Grand Hotel (1932)

The 5th Academy Awards (1932)
Nominations: 1
Wins: 1

Welcome to our second year of Oscars Fortnight! Just like last year, these next two weeks will consist of reviewing Oscar movies in anticipation of the big night on March 27. Our requirements are basically just that if a film was nominated for Best Picture and we’ve always wanted to see it (but never got around to it), we’ll review it.

The film I’ll be reviewing here is kind of an odd Oscar case, in that it was both a Best Picture nominee and winner, despite not being nominated for any other categories (which has still only happened this one time). The reason for this probably has more to do with there being less Oscar categories in the ceremony’s early years (supporting actor categories weren’t even included yet), though you do have to wonder how this wasn’t at least nominated for Best Art Direction. My main reference for Grand Hotel has always been that it comes up in another Best Picture winner, The Apartment, which features a scene where Jack Lemmon is about to sit down to a TV dinner and watch this star-studded cast before being dissuaded by an overabundance of advertising interrupting the film. Thankfully, this problem didn’t come up watching it on HBO Max. Continue reading →

The Pick: Sneakers

The gang’s all here for an especially sneaky episode of The Pick! After a lengthy break, we’re back with a tribute to perhaps the most legendary actor we’ve lost so far this year — Sidney Poitier. Of course, we do it by picking the movie of his that is most in line with this podcast’s very particular aesthetic, the somewhat forgotten but very entertaining Sneakers. In addition to Poitier, we also discuss the rest of the film’s stacked cast, which includes Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, David Straithairn, River Phoenix, but definitely not David Paymer (though we do talk about him a lot more than you’d expect). Continue reading →

Colin’s Favorite Albums of February 2022

Here’s the thing. I still like writing about music, but it’s been hard the past few years to figure out the best way to write about music. Full-fledged reviews often feel both a little too precious and like I’ve missed my window since I’m not a professional music critic and don’t get to listen to albums before their release dates. Also, waiting until the halfway point or end of the year often feels like too long of a wait between the time I first found my sweet spot of listening to a new album and actually getting around to writing about it. So maybe I’ll try out giving my thoughts on albums I liked from the past month I’ve lived through. Although, it’s possible I just feel compelled to write about some of the music from February 2022 because it’s been absolutely packed with albums I’ve been excited about after 2021 as a whole fell a little flat music-wise. So let’s see how this goes… Continue reading →

Top Ten Most Anticipated Movies of 2022

We’ve got another pretty long podcast this week as we finally look to the future by sharing our most anticipated (and unanticipated) movies of 2022. Much like last year, it’s hard to say with confidence that every single one of these will be released over the course of the year, though this skepticism prompted Sean and John to take different approaches in what movies would be included on their lists. There are a lot of recurring actors on all of our lists and a lot of different multiverses to be excited about and/or dread, but most importantly, we have long conversations about the Legion of Super-pets and the Topps trading card series Dinosaurs Attack. Continue reading →