127 Videodrome

This week we review David Cronenberg's 1983 classic Videodrome. If brain tumors were doled out to those who've casually watched tasteless sex and violence, we'd all be dead in the internet age. But back in 1983, when VHS acted as a sole source for content delivery of our collective perversions, Videodrome was perhaps more prescient and horrifying. Thirty years later, calloused to reality television and on-line video "obscenity" where everyone lives "online", Videodrome's blurred reality is more the norm than the exception. Enjoy a little Crononberg body-horror and long live the new flesh!

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126 Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Could this movie get made today? If you're the strangely prudish Russ Meyer devotee, Roger Ebert, the answer would be "let this movie never get made!" As time travelers from the hyper-sensitive P.C. present, Matt and Mark disagree. Stacy's coming of age experiences with underage sex, reproductive mistakes, and poor judgement isn't necessarily the exception, but perhaps more the norm than uptight middle-aged white guy America likes to think. In the past, Jennifer Jason Liegh's Stacy probably would have been burned at the stake, but in early 80's American, she's just slut shamed by Ebert.

Download: 126 Fast Times at Ridgemont High

125 Sexy Beast

Just when you think you're out, they pull you back in! This week Matt and Mark review Sexy Beast starring a surprisingly menacing Ben Kingsley as the titular character. While Sexy Beast could easily be a straight up British heist film, it chooses to be something more. Which is strange considering its 85 minute run time. Kingsley's Don Logan is a sociopath with a single-mindedness that may be perfect for crime, but is cancerous when it comes to matters of the heart. Sexy Beast is well filmed and visually amazing, and one can only wonder if Donnie Darko's Frank the bunny was inspired by Sexy Beast's Uzi toting counterpart.

Download: 125 Sexy Beast

124 Big Trouble in Little China

John Carpenter's campy cult classic Big Trouble in Little China, chock full of classic special effects, still holds up to this day and as a result is a beloved favorite by many (more some, than others!... you know who you are). An original film concept if there ever was one, Big Trouble slips between Western tropes and Hong Kong Kung-fu awesomeness while mashing it up with Dungeons and Dragons, creating an adventure no nerdy teenage boy of the 80's could resist. Anyway, pour some green tea into your favorite bottle of Scotch, sit back, and enjoy!

Download: 124 Big Trouble in Little China

123 Borat

Very Nice! High Five! At the height of America's redneck propaganda in 2006, immersed in one of the most ridiculous overseas misadventures of the country's history, Sacha Cohen decided to hold up a cultural mirror to the ole' USA, resulting in Borat. Gag driven and loosely scripted, stereotypes both of the old world and the new are juxtaposed for laughs, sometimes mixed, sometimes spot on. However, the fact that Borat doesn't really resemble anyone from Kazakhstan may be the movie's most deft criticism of our cultural myopia and stupidity.

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122 The Matrix

An epic podcast this week (and maybe our longest?), we enter the Matrix, a film that stylistically matches our appetite for thought provoking sci-fi. Like most sci-fi, the Matrix is derivative, but in all the right ways, especially when it comes to the questions Agent Smith poses to not only Neo and Morpheus, but ourselves. If your existence is defined as a prison, regardless of the cage, is it your duty as a human to escape it? Must human beings never serve a master? Red or blue, the choice doesn't seem to be that simple.

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121 Bad Boys 2

What? You haven't seen the first Bad Boys? Sorry bro, you're totally not going to get Bad Boys 2. But if you dare, let Matt and Mark give you the neophyte's perspective. A quintessential Michael Bay action movie (although quintessential is a little too high bro) BB2 is a film lesson in why our current decade and a half has been a wretched low point in action film, devoid of suspense, care, or craftsmanship. BB2 is what happens when films are made purely based on marketing decisions, solely focused on profit margins. Michael Bay's talent lies in his ability to get asses in seats, $12.50 in hand, and for that, he and his ilk will unfortunately be with us for quite some time.

Download: 121 Bad Boys 2