Reel Phonies

Ahsoka Tano? Clones? Carl Weathers is good at directing? We've got a lot to catch up on in The Mandalorian! We've also got updates on a potential Spider-Verse with Alfred Molina (Doc Ock), a curious Black Widow announcement, and a potential casting on a new Black Panther.

In this special Reel Phonies Spinoff, husband/wife duo and newly-minted Ghibli experts Joseph and Valerie take you on a journey through the Studio Ghibli catalog. Often described as Japanese Disney (and recently accessible on streaming through HBOMax), the Ghibli films are animated stories for all ages that weave fantastical tales of adventure, whimsy, and self-discovery. Whether you've seen some or none of these films, this guide will give you a basic rundown of each of the movies and what makes each one special (or skippable). If you're just looking for a jumping off point, a timecode for our rankings of the 23 films is listed below:   Ghibli Rankings - 48:56

From Ray to Imitation Game to Into The Wild, we love a good biopic that tells a comprehensive story of a fascinating life in a tight 2 hours. But there are still so many interesting folks whose stories have yet to be adapted to the big screen. This week we're looking at some overlooked biopics that we think are well-overdue for the Hollywood treatment.

From Back to the Future to Terminator to Bill and Ted, some of our favorite movies are time travel stories. Although it's fun to think about what would be possible with the ability to travel backward in time, each of these movies proposes it's own particular rules for how that might work.  We break down some of the most famous time travel movies along with their own time travel logic and see at what point they break their own rules and whether that even matters.

The Mandalorian is back! Oscar Isaac as Moonknight! Jared Leto still exists! There's a lot to catch up on and we've got you covered for all the October entertainment news worth noting and, of course, the new season of The Mandalorian.

We're closing out our Halloween Horror for Cowards series with the classic John Carpenter masterpiece, The Thing. It's got Kurt Russell, an underrated Keith David, an almost unrecognizable Wilford Brimley, and a lot of squirmy, wet tentacles. Truly a monster movie that delivers on it's monster, this was a blast to watch and even more fun to talk about.

In our third foray into the horror genre this month, we're taking a look at the 1983 cult classic, Sleepaway Camp. It's a classic 80's slasher set in a campground with an unexpected ending. From questionable casting and costuming choices to impossible cookware to numerous plotholes, this film was a lot of fun to talk about even if not all of us enjoyed the viewing experience.

This week we're diving into Drew Goddard's meta-horror/comedy film The Cabin in the Woods. It's a film that feels very much like an Evil Dead ripoff and a sequel to The Office that spends most of its runtime explaining how those two can go together. It's more comedy than scares which makes it perfect for the cowards who do this podcast.

In our Halloween kickoff episode, we're watching Leigh Whannell's The Invisible Man to be frightened by a threatening, unseen presence and by how dang good Elizabeth Moss is at acting. It's an update to a classic movie monster that feels much scarier than it's original iteration. Join us through the month of October as we traumatize our feeble, wimpy brains with a new horror flick each week.

This week we're tackling Netflix's newest, family-friendly detective flick, Enola Holmes. We discuss Henry Cavill's antagonistic relationship to clothing, why Helena Bonham Carter is underrated, and an unexpected amount of Harry Potter.

We're back and catching up on the big news of the last few weeks. We got casting news on Marvel's She-Hulk series, updates to the future of DC streaming, and the first trailers for Denis Villeneuve's Dune, WandaVision, and The Mandalorian: Season 2.

We're catching up with all the notable entertainment news of the past few weeks. We take a moment to reflect on the tragic death of Chadwick Boseman and the legacy he's left behind. We also take a look at all the upcoming DC projects announced during their virtual Comic-Con including Suicide Squad, WW84 and Black Adam. And we just couldn't overlook discussing the little X-Men movie that could, New Mutants. 

After failing to kill a very small, helpless Harry Potter in the first four films, Voldemort returns to kill a slightly more capable but similarly sized Harry 4 more times and just can not get it right. The kids are older, the color palette is darker, and Alan Rickman is sublime all the way through. We're talking the best and most curious bits of the latter half of the Harry Potter films and not even Emma Watson's acting can stifle our enthusiasm.

It must be super embarrassing to be a powerful wizard/dark lord and get thwarted at every turn by a child with bad eyesight. This week we're beginning the first phase of our Harry Potter revisit starting with Sorcerer's Stone through the one where Edward/Batman gets killed by Voldemort. Turns out these movies are a blast no matter how many times you watch them so join us as we hash out the best and worst of the Harry Potter franchise.

With James Mangold's Indy film on the distant horizon, we thought we'd take a crack at the kind of Indiana Jones adventures we'd like to see on the big screen. We each bring our own spin on the franchise while incorporating all the best Indy elements: lost cities, cursed artifacts, punching Nazis, and, of course, Short Round. 

After the unexpected success of the first Pirates film, Disney gave Gore Verbinski the reigns and a sack of cash to make something bigger, better, and more profitable. The two films that followed (Dead Man's Chest and At World's End) left audiences divided and never quite lived up to the original. We're taking a look back to see if maybe history has been a little too unkind to these two films and see if we can find the buried treasure in this franchise based on a 50 year old amusement park ride.

Taylor, I'mma let you finish but 2009 was not the best year for mainstream blockbuster movies. Transformers 2 dominated the domestic box office while Avatar was primed to reintroduce the world to 3D technology and simultaneously re-ruin it. But this year wasn't all bloated, big-budget buffoonery. From some underrated horror flicks to Duncan Jones' sci-fi masterpiece to Black Dynamite, there are plenty of great films from 2009 that deserve a little more attention.

As the entertainment world slowly gets its wheels turning again, we thought it would be a good time to check in on some movie and TV news that may have slipped under the radar over the last month or two. From James Mangold taking over Indy 5 to Bill & Ted 3 to Guillermo del Toro being attached to yet another new project, we're covering a lot of ground in our first installment of Quarantine Scuttlebutt.

The musical sensation that blew up the Broadway scene is now conveniently located on Disney+ to watch comfortably in your PJs. We take a look at Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda's groundbreaking and wildly popular musical about about a life of Alexander Hamilton and the founding fathers told through a hip hop-inspired soundtrack. But is it as good as it's hyped up to be? And is it better than Michael Bay's Transformers? Let's find out!

After The Matrix took over the world with its surprising synergy of leather, kung fu, and philosophy, many people were disappointed by the two follow-up efforts, The Matrix: Reloaded and The Matrix: Revolutions. But has history been overly harsh toward these movies? Join us as we revisit both Matrix sequels to see if they really are as bad as we remember or if this is another case of our expectations getting the best of us.