Four-color Film Podcast

Join hosts Allen Christian & Steven Granger, and the Andy Richter of Podcasting, Mr. Gerald James, as we dive head first into the modern superhero movie with 2000's X-Men, directed by Bryan Singer, starring Sir Patrick Stewart, Sir Ian McKellen, and Huge Jackedman. With a plot that might as well have been lifted straight out of a bad Roy Thomas comic, the film exceeds in every other department. Kevin Nash jokes happen. We forget to mention the Danzig connection, even though we really wanted to make those jokes too.  Statue Of Liberty Mutant Machine #solmm Email: fourcolorfilm@gmail.com Twitter: @fourcolorfilm Facebook: facebook.com/fourcolorfilm Website: fourcolorfilm.com  

Host Steven Granger is joined by co-host Gerald James to quickly review 2000's The Crow: Salvation. Even Gerald hates this travesty. Allen misses an episode for the first time, and remains thankful that his job kept him away from this steaming pile of garbage. Email: fourcolorfilm@gmail.com Twitter: @fourcolorfilm Facebook: facebook.com/fourcolorfilm Website: fourcolorfilm.com  

Prepare to have your mouth smashed as we make you feel like an All-Star with a lengthy review of 1999's Mystery Men. A fantastic comedic take on the genre, Mystery Men is surprisingly funny and entertaining, and the perfect way to close out the 90's. Taking every trope of the genre from the 90's and lampooning them to varying degrees of success, the movie never gets boring. Well cast and well written, the film is just good fun. We highly recommend it.

This week on the 'cast, Allen and Steven put together an episode on-par length-wise with some of the epics, except this one is just for 1998's The Mask of Zorro, starring Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Directed by Martin Campbell, the film defies our expectations and delivers on both fun and quality. This, however, doesn't stop the discussion from veering into the oddest of realms, from the global implications of 9/11, to Martin Van Buren starring in Jackass. Sean Connery is once again thrown under the bus, and the boys spend way too long recollecting local cable programming. Email: fourcolorfilm@gmail.com Twitter: @fourcolorfilm Facebook: facebook.com/fourcolorfilm Website: fourcolorfilm.com  

Jumping back into the main run, Allen and Steven tackle 1998's Blade. The first truly successful R-rated superhero property, Blade may or may not be responsible for the revitalization of superhero properties after the great crash of '97. Starring Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff, and Kris Kristofferson, the vampire-slaying flick proves to be a lot of fun. In this episode, an un-spirited debate is had on the validity of Kris Kristofferson's status as an American treasure, Wesley Snipes is probably the black Van Damme except cooler, and Allen is of the belief that Stephen Dorff ruined being white for everyone.  Email: fourcolorfilm@gmail.com Twitter: @fourcolorfilm Facebook: facebook.com/fourcolorfilm Website: fourcolorfilm.com

This week we take you all the way back to the beginning, where we meander through our very first episode. 1966's Batman starring Adam West and Burt Ward. Listen as hosts Allen Christian and Steven Granger try to figure out what even is a podcast. Marvel as they have nothing substantial to say about the feature-length Adam West Batman. Stand in puzzlement as you find that over a year later, we haven't bothered to do much editing on this episode at all. The decision to not publish this episode first was a good one, but in the wider context of the show, it's worth existing. Email: fourcolorfilm@gmail.com Twitter: @fourcolorfilm Facebook: facebook.com/fourcolorfilm Website: fourcolorfilm.com

Allen and Steven are joined again by Gerald James to discuss the Adam West Batman television show, along with a bunch of stuff coming out of the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con. Email: fourcolorfilm@gmail.com Twitter: @fourcolorfilm Facebook: facebook.com/fourcolorfilm Website: fourcolorfilm.com  

1968's Barbarella is the last film we hit on this pick-up run. Big, bombastic, stupid, and visually stunning. For its time its sci-fi production is worth the price of admission. Gerald James pops up midway through the episode, having not seen the movie, so derailment was imminent. But we discuss the film as best we can. Email: fourcolorfilm@gmail.com Twitter: @fourcolorfilm Facebook: facebook.com/fourcolorfilm Website: fourcolorfilm.com

1972's Fritz The Cat, written and directed by the legendary Ralph Bakshi, based on the Robert Crumb comics. It's raunchy. It's Rated X. It's 2.5/5 stars. Allen and Steven try to tackle this animated mess that tries to tell a story, tries for some character development, and tries to show a lot of anthropomorphic animals fucking. It succeeds at one of those. Email: fourcolorfilm@gmail.com Twitter: @fourcolorfilm Facebook: facebook.com/fourcolorfilm Website: fourcolorfilm.com  

Continuing our rewind, we dial up 1984's Sheena, starring Tanya Roberts and Vic Blossomsdad. Featuring one of the most interesting people to ever live, Princess Elizabeth of Toro, who, amidst a jam-packed fascinating life, somehow managed to squeeze in a role in this terrible movie. We discuss as much about this movie as possible, which is actually quite a lot. We make a good time out of a bad movie. The perfect useless podcast for a useless summer day. Email: fourcolorfilm@gmail.com Twitter: @fourcolorfilm Facebook: facebook.com/fourcolorfilm Website: fourcolorfilm.com

Taking a step back to pick up some things we missed for a few weeks, we hop back to 1980's Flash Gordon, starring Sam J. Jones, Max Von Sydow, Brian Blessed, and Timothy Dalton. Steven had never seen the film, and it's an old favorite of Allen's. We drop a few factoids, but mostly spend the episode just happy to have enjoyed something for the first time in months. Email: fourcolorfilm@gmail.com Twitter: @fourcolorfilm Facebook: facebook.com/fourcolorfilm Website: fourcolorfilm.com  

Diverting from the usual format of talking over a film, we decide instead to sit down with Gerald James and do a retrospective on the 90's as well as past episodes, take 1997 to task for being an onslaught of bad superhero films to the point of putting the genre into a coma, we look forward to the future, and we sum up everything we would have had to say about Steel in just a few minutes, as opposed to a long, drawn-out episode where no one is having any fun. Email: fourcolorfilm@gmail.com Twitter: @fourcolorfilm Facebook: facebook.com/fourcolorfilm Website: fourcolorfilm.com

Still stuck in 1997, this week brings us to the abysmal film based on the Todd McFarlane property, Spawn. Hosts Allen Christian and Steven Granger are once again joined by Alan Hardy and Gerald James in an effort to talk about anything but this movie. Better Martin Sheen movies are discussed, we lament that more people don't know how cool Michael Jai White is, Allen Ribisis his jaw, Gerald is upset that Alan calls John Leguizamo "Johnny Legs", Alan is upset that Allen regards Donny as the lesser Wahlberg, Colm Meaney is talked about far too much, Steven has been misleading Allen into thinking Con Air was a Michael Bay movie for years, Allen & Alan decide they are now a single unit. More wrestling jokes, everyone curses too much, and Allen laments the direction of the podcast. Email: fourcolorfilm@gmail.com Twitter: @fourcolorfilm Facebook: facebook.com/fourcolorfilm Website: fourcolorfilm.com  

  Still in 1997, we arrive at Men In Black. Based off the Aircel Comics (later bought by Malibu Comics, who were then bought by Marvel Comics) property, starring Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith, Vincent D'Onofrio, Linda Fiorentino, and Rip Torn, directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, with a score by Danny Elfman (which we neglect to mention). The film is a enjoyable and a great watch, but it was so successful and so ubiquitous that the boys have trouble finding anything worthwhile to say about it. So they mostly do not. Instead, the discussion weaves through a lament of 80's grit in comic books, the Fast & Furious series, Vin Diesel's love for Paul Walker, the "frat pack," hatred for Steve Carell and Vince Vaughn, David Cross is loved, Allen's only reliable memory of childhood is revealed to be the names of the characters in Power Rangers, the Green Ranger is put on blast, Joe Rogan is hated.    Email: fourcolorfilm@gmail.com Twitter: @fourcolorfilm Facebook: facebook.com/fourcolorfilm Website: fourcolorfilm.com  

Against everyone's wishes, the crew (including the returning Gerald James) returns to Gotham City. A city of justice, a city of love, a city of peace for everyone of us. We all need it. Can't live without it.  No surprises here. Nobody likes this. The nicest words we can manage are in praise of the promotional Pop-Tarts released during the hype. Everyone is terrible, and nothing about this movie is good. Also in this episode, Allen's hatred for Pat Hingle reaches new heights, fax machines on elephants, monkey work, ZZ Top, we question why a plan to freeze the world and replace the flora with mutant plant-animals is in anyway conducive to the health of the planet, Allen learns that he thinks Steven is trash, Revolution X, 9/11 Truther Jesse "The Body" Ventura, Oxbridge University, lip condoms, and the properties of diamonds are properly laid out (SPOILER: they're pretty much just rocks). Fuck this movie. Email: fourcolorfilm@gmail.com Twitter: @fourcolorfilm Facebook: facebook.com/fourcolorfilm Website: fourco

We round out 1996 by revisiting the world of James O'Barr's The Crow in the ill-advised sequel, The Crow: City Of Angels. We have a full house as Allen and Steven welcome back previous guests Alan Hardy, Gerald James, and Lacey Day, to dissect and attempt to explain what is happening in this movie. Also on this episode, we discuss the band HIM for really no good reason, white trash goth kids, every 80's band ever is referenced for no good reason, Pantera is outed as Lynyrd Skynyrd with distortion, Seven Mary Three is only not Pearl Jam because they're different people, and Iggy Pop spent 40 years living on the sun. Email: fourcolorfilm@gmail.com Twitter: @fourcolorfilm Facebook: facebook.com/fourcolorfilm Website: fourcolorfilm.com  

This week we managed to rope Gerald James into talking about a movie he had never seen or cared about. 1996's The Phantom, starring crowd-favorite Billy Zane, is a forgettable thrill ride that never left us bored or short on jokes. Far more fun than you'd think, but far less fun than it should be, the pulp comic strip character is treated well, and delivers enough entertainment to kill 2 hours. Though its PG rating leaves us all baffled. Billy Zane is adored, Allen confuses James Russo for James Remar and thinks he's a different guy than he is in this movie, and Gerald doesn't like any of this. Also in this episode, we remember Godsmack and lament the things they did to deserts in the mid-00's, radio DJs are hated again, and podcast plans are made for Halloween.  Email: fourcolorfilm@gmail.com Twitter: @fourcolorfilm Facebook: facebook.com/fourcolorfilm Website: fourcolorfilm.com

Lacey Day pinch-hits for Steven as we tackle 1996's Dark HorseProduction of Barb Wire, starring PamelaAnderson. We turn the film into a loose drinking game to helpus get through the 100 minute run time. Lacey offers unique insightas to why, while she loves a strong female lead, she finds nothingmuch to like about this film. A strange adaptation of a 90's comic,mixed with 90's action trash, and a loose ganking of the plot toCasablanca, Barb Wire falls short ofeveryones expectations, and is a worthy film if you're ever lookingfor a final straw to push you over the edge into the deep, darkabyss of alcoholism.Also in this episode, Lacey Day outlines the White Castle andKrystal's are more certainly not the same restaurant, that Jack InThe Box is well worth visiting if you don't have much money andwant a couple tacos for a dollar, and we establish that leather isthe only resource that becomes more affordable in the SecondAmerican Civil War.Email: fourcolorfilm@gmail.comTwitter: @fourcolorfilmFacebook: facebook.com/

The 1995 Sly Stallone vehicle, Judge Dredd, is ourpersonal plague this week, as we try to talk about the film, butmostly end up talking about other, better sci-fi movies. We outourselves as Stallone apologists, but can't quite get behind himbeing in this movie. We discuss the questionable life choices ofthe great Max von Sydow. Rob Schneider is certainly in this movie,Armand Assante tragically isn't dealing coke in this film, and allGermans are bad guys in the 90's.Also in this episode, Texas is too proud of being Texas, wediscuss mundane things we should have talked about off the podcast,and Stallone pops in to read his quotes about this movie.Email: fourcolorfilm@gmail.comTwitter: @fourcolorfilmFacebook: facebook.com/fourcolorfilmWebsite: fourcolorfilm.com

In our longest and most in-depth episode to date, we sit down to sing the praises of Joel Schumacher's first swing at the Dark Knight in 1995's Batman Forever, starring Val Kilmer, Jim Carrey, Nicole Kidman, Chris O'Donnel, and Tommy Lee Jones. Unfairly tossed aside in the pop-cultural landscape due to the failures of Batman & Robin, Schumacher's first outing after taking the reins from Tim Burton was actually everything a Batman movie should be. Not without its flaws, and with villains played far too large, the core of Batman was reached rather well. And then largely edited out. But the dynamism that didn't make the final cut still informs the character.Also in this episode, we delve into what a superhero movie should be, how Warner Bros. have lost their way in this department, how bad movies absolutely can ruin good heroes, and, of course, how awful Zack Snyder is. So take this dive with us. Learn some things about this movie, learn some things about Batman, learn some things about us, and maybe even le