This week, Justin and Ryan dig into 'He Who Gets Slapped' (1924) and talk about...

- Early revenge flick?

- Lon Chaney Sr. vs. Jr.

- Silent films, acting broadly and transition from theater styles

- Chaney Sr. admiration

- Clown-coding villainy

- Murder by kitty

- Super fast romantic development

- Based on a play (again!)

- ...which is even darker than the movie

- Justin gets hyped about seeing Cheney's Phantom...

- ...and has to register his gripes about the story anyway

- Our Verdict

- Next week's film: 'Seven Samurai' (1954)

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This week, Justin and Ryan dig into 'The Russians Are Coming' (1966) and talk about...

- Offering Pete as tribute to end the cold war

- Deflating tail-chasing rumors and paranoia

- An island full of 'Facebook People' and imagining how this would play out in the internet age

- A few unusual twists

- Slapstick filler

- Romance now, defect later

- The necessity of characters who keep their heads and talk sense

- Mixing genres, padded comedies and questionable accolades

- The fine line between action-thriller and comedy

- Bringing it home by the end

- Our Verdict

- Next week's film: 'He Who Gets Slapped' (1924)

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This week, Justin and Ryan dig into 'The Man Who Came to Dinner' (1942) and talk about...

- Placing Bette Davis' role in her cannon of work

- Figuring out the 'messy' character of Sheridan and his relationship with Maggie

- How that holds up the slapstick elements

- The real-life story behind all this craziness

- One of the weirdest tributes to a real-life person

- Real-life inspirations for the rest of the cast

- Orson Welles almost directing it

- Stretching the (time) limits of the premise

- Throwaway love-interest Maguffin

- Callback to "Beyond Christmas"

- Knocking down the high-fallutin' a peg or two

- Wrestling with some of the choices with Maggie's character

- Reminders of Jack Nicholson, "As Good As It Gets"

- Our Verdict

- Next week's film: 'The Russians Are Coming' (1966)

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Pre-script note: We recorded this episode shortly before the murder of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Had we known it beforehand, the events around their killings could, and would have likely been included in the discussion as two people who did not allow a great evil of our day to pass through them.

This week, Justin and Ryan dig into 'Judgment at Nuremberg' (1961) and talk about...

- not being able to avoid drawing parallels to current events

- the way the film addresses complexity of one morally compromised nation attempting to bring charges against officials of another morally compromised nation

- arguing the omnipresence of sin for the cause of avoiding responsibility

- Judge Haywood: the observer character

- The impulse to forget and the choice not to look

- "There is no war in Ba Sing Se"

- How amoral monsters draw into complicity those who aren't naturally moral monsters

- how choosing the 'lesser evil' ends up driving you to evil

- speaking out about the current state America and the world

- *"It came to that the first time..."*

- Not letting evil pass through us for the fear of losing lesser things

- Some great cinematography tricks for a courtroom drama

- Our Verdict

- Next week's film: 'The Man Who Came to Dinner' (1942)

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This week, Justin and Ryan dig into 'Under the Yum-Yum Tree' (1963) and talk about...

https://tubitv.com/movies/100014481/under-the-yum-yum-tree

- Dean Jones does Jimmy Stewart?

- Sexual revolution and 60's cinema

- Unusual, plot specific apartment layouts

- Was 'not-looking' not an option?

- Making your heroine complicit in obvious traps to the point of stupidity

- Hogan as prototypical Quagmire

- Could use more torture for Hogan, honestly

- How is this guy not in jail already?

- Making you wonder what happened, in the creepiest way possible

- Ending on the high note

- Our Verdict

- Next week's film: 'Judgment at Nuremberg' (1961)

https://tubitv.com/movies/100006404/judgment-at-nuremberg

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This week, Justin and Ryan dig into 'The Taming of the Shrew' (1967) and talk about...

- Abuse: the Movie

- Trying to understand the rationale for Shakespeare writing it this way

- Controversial even in Shakespeare's time.

- With some small changes, could be a horror story

- The horror of psychological manipulation

- Connection to "10 Things I Hate About You"

- Compared to other Shakespeare romantic comedies that work (More understanding)

- Peter York's first film

- A good adaptation of a bad story

- Our Verdict

- Next week's film: 'Under the Yum-Yum Tree' (1963)

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This week, Justin and Ryan dig into 'The Brain from Planet Arous' (1957) and talk about...

- Can a sci-fi film be less concerned with explaining what the rules are?

- "Is he dead?"

- Fiction's best detective is not Batman, but random nameless small-town sheriff.

- Ridiculously overpowered villain foiled by easily foil-able plot.

- Brain dude doesn't need to possess a human to threaten Earth, but it's fun, so...

- Why our note-taking system should probably incorporate a sarcasm tag

- Why the *dog*?

- Missed potential: Alien-possession couples-therapy

- Even 'good' alien brains are sexist, because 50's

- Is Mystery Mountain *really* that rarely visited?

- Neat concept, but...

- Everybody's wooden - except Steve. And Steve makes up for everyone else

- The women-preparing-food trope

- Does the FBI accept alien possession" as the reason why you're not really a threat any more?

- Our Verdict

- Next week's film: 'The Taming of the Shrew' (1967)

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This week, Justin and Ryan dig into 'The Thin Man' (1934) and talk about...

https://tubitv.com/movies/100045809/the-thin-man

- a 'light' noir piece

- Nick and Nora: a couple for the ages

- the smartest guy in the room, sans arrogance

- A *relationship* for the ages

- the amazing popular streak of "The Thin Man" series

- The real-life platonic relationship between the leads

- One-take directors, like Ed Wood, but actually good

- When the couple steals the show from the genre

- Our Verdict

- Next week's film: 'The Brain from Planet Arous' (1957)

https://archive.org/details/brain-from-planet-arous-1957

Did we get the movie wrong? Tell us why! And let us know what films you think we should cover.

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