Most Anticipated Movies of 2023

After looking backing at 2022, we finally turn our eyes to the future. While the film industry is still in somewhat of a weird place, there is still plenty to be excited about for the coming year in film. Well, there’s also plenty to be a less excited about as well, since there is (as always) a least anticipated list to go along with Sean and John’s most anticipated movies of the year. With Indiana Jones, Ethan Hunt, and Optimus Prime returning to theaters, these familiar faces could either surprise or disappoint us, while less franchise-driven movies could equally do the same. That’s the beauty of a fresh slate of movies to moderate our expectations around. Continue reading →

The Eleventh Annual Mildly Pleased Awards

For the first time in what feels like a while, the year preceding our new one doesn’t feel like it would be entirely painful to revisit. In fact, it could be a mildly pleasing endeavor. That’s why we’re once again looking back at the year in things that were good but not great. Whether it was Don’t Worry Darling having a weirdly disastrous premiere, various things Taylor Swift did, or corn kids and British documentarians going viral, there was plenty to feel just fine about. Like most award shows, this episode is a long one. So feel to check out the nominees and winners below if you’re not prepared for nearly 3 hours of podcasting, since as you’ll hear, we certainly got tired of movies being that long in 2022. Continue reading →

The Pick: Avatar: The Way of Water

We just couldn’t close out this year on Mildly Pleased or The Pick without getting wet and wild while learning the way of water. It’s a super-sized episode for a super-sized film, which includes a journey through the life and career of James Cameron and how he ended up at such an award-winning and financially unprecedented position in Hollywood. Also, if you were at all aware that a Pandora flavor of Frosted Flakes existed, you probably already could’ve guessed that we’ll be talking about it as one of our Little Picks. Continue reading →

The Pick: Reindeer Games

We three kings bring curiosity for Ben Affleck’s early stardom on this holiday installment of The Pick. The episode is a dive into the year 2000’s somewhat forgotten Reindeer Games, the last film directed by John Frankenheimer and the first to ask what would happen if a bunch of incompetent criminals robbed a casino while dressed in Santa outfits. It’s a movie that has some questionable twists and turns while also bringing very little that’s new to the crime or action genre, but it’s still hard to complain when you’re surrounded by friends (or at least talking to them through a microphone) as that merriest of holidays fast approaches. Continue reading →

The Pick: The Money Pit

This episode took us a little while to record, since our own Sean Lemme was busy moving into a new house, not unlike Tom Hanks and Shelley Duvall in this episode’s film, albeit with less destruction. As our lone Hanks-giving pick this year (if you can even call it that considering it’s December), the movie provides a nice snapshot of Hanks’ pre-Big stardom, and is also an interesting early endeavor of Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment. There’s also an unexpected discussion of the “just guys bein’ slobs” genre of sitcoms as well as a game in which we try to guess the most bankable stars of 1986. Continue reading →

The Pick: The Addams Family

With spooky season coming to a close, we spend some time in the residence of the ookiest of all families, The Addamses. We do this by first delving into the history of this fictional family that originated with Charles Addams’ New Yorker cartoon that was turned into a TV show that has always seemed to live in the shadow of The Munsters. The 1991 movie adaptation is a bundle of unbridled irreverence that is pretty up our alley considering its mix of the macabre and the wacky. It’s also a great movie to revisit this Shocktober if you’re looking for something to scratch that Halloween itch that isn’t necessarily scary, but still loads of dark fun. Snap, snap. Continue reading →

The Pick: Morbius

This time on The Pick it is, unfortunately, morbin’ time. In the midst of Shocktober season, we dive into the recent film portrayal of one of the spookier superhero villains and live to regret it. This is quite possibly the worst movie we’ve reviewed so far on The Pick, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a lively and cathartic conversation while airing our grievances against it and what can go wrong when the people making a superhero movie don’t seem remotely invested in what they’re putting onscreen. Plus, we get another unconventional Little Pick as Sean educates us on the low-profile Brazilian jiu-jitsu career of Sony Spider-man Universe alum, Tom Hardy. Continue reading →