The Tenth Annual Mildly Pleased Awards

2021 wasn’t the worst year ever… technically. But it also wasn’t anything approaching mildly pleasing. Still, as has been the case for ten years now, we once again convene to celebrate the year’s achievements in pop culture that was good but not great. This time, we opted to cut out some categories that didn’t seem essential (not that any of this is that essential), and yet we still ended up with an episode that’s just a little under three hours long. Maybe chalk it up to our passion for debating the merits of Spider-man: No Way Home, our growing mixed feelings about Dwayne Johnson, or the fact that we just enjoy talking to each other about music and movies that will ultimately be forgotten. Continue reading →

The Pick: Cloud Atlas

Merry Hanksmas! So… the last movie in our Hanksgiving trilogy of episodes took us a little longer to finish. Some of this could be due to how long Cloud Atlas (and the movie we reviewed before it) is, and some of it could be due to the fact that we’re just not very good at scheduling these things. Anyways, just like this movie, we go in a lot of different directions, which includes the movie’s questionable make-up decisions, the movie’s less questionable use of parallel storylines, Tom Hanks’ forgotten pair of Dave Eggars adaptations, and whatever’s going on with Christmas crackers. Continue reading →

The Pick: The Green Mile

Hanksgiving continues with what might be Tom Hanks’ longest movie (don’t quote me on that), The Green Mile. We dive into its Steven King origins and how director Frank Darabont has been one of King’s more successful adaptors, even if he can’t seem to get a movie made these days. We also have a little bit of Tom Hanks trivia to take the place of John’s Rogue’s Gallery after sprinkling plenty of Green Mile trivia throughout the podcast, which includes imagining a considerably worse film that starred John Travolta and Shaq. Continue reading →

The Pick: The ‘Burbs

Happy Hanksgiving, everyone!

That’s right. Throughout the month of November, we’ll exclusively be reviewing Tom Hanks movies on The Pick, since why not spend some time with America’s Dad before you’re forced to do the same with your own family in a few weeks? We start things off with The ‘Burbs, a movie that came at the end of Hanks’ shaggy ’80s, where he was still finding his footing as a leading man. We talk about the “hang-out” quality of the movie, as well as our various ideas that could’ve made it a little better, which includes giant two-headed dogs, an underground society of mole people, and recasting that includes George Wendt and Ray Charles. Continue reading →

The Pick: Dune (2021)

Well, it finally happened. We’ve finally arrived at the release of Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Dune, a film we’ve been waiting for ever since the three of us (plus Matt Carstens) did a Dune book club during the early days of the pandemic and then did an episode of The Pick talking about the book in relation to the 1984 version of Dune. Matt joins us for an in-depth discussion covering this new Dune as we once again get into how this movie compares to the book while also learning to let go and accept the movie as its own thing. Also, we forgo our Little Picks with a little discussion of No Time To Die, which we were planning on doing a full podcast on, but it just kinda got away from us.

The Pick: The Many Saints of Newark

Ohhh! Marone! It may be Shocktober, but there’s still nothing scarier than a mob hit. This week we’re talking about the big screen return (that kinda ended up being a small screen return due to streaming) of The Sopranos. We take a trip back to Jersey with The Many Saints of Newark by reminiscing a bit about one of the greatest TV shows ever as well as how best to assess this companion film in relation to the show. It’s a bit of a longer episode, since apparently it’s subject matter that we have a lot to say about, while we also throw in an extended segment that tests our Sopranos knowledge. Continue reading →

The Pick: Venom

With Venom: Let There Be Carnage hitting theaters this week, we’re taking a look back at the original film, the rare case of a superhero movie that we all basically just ignored. It’s hard to say whether Venom convinced us to see this new installment, but at the very least it gives us a reason to see whatever bizarre acting choices Tom Hardy will be up to this time. Apart from Hardy’s madcap performance, we talk about the character’s history, its relation to the overall Spider-verse, and why Sony can’t help but milk it for all it’s worth. Continue reading →