Movie Podcast Weekly Ep. 051: The Family (2013) and Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013)

Welcome to Episode 051 of Movie Podcast Weekly. During this episode, we review “The Family” (2013) and “Insidious: Chapter 2” (2013) with the help of special guest ANTHONY BRUNO, crime author of the book “The Iceman: The Story of a Cold-Blooded Killer, as well as special guest KEITH STEIN, the host of The Donut Show pop culture podcast.

SHOW NOTES
I. Intro
– special guest Anthony Bruno
– special guest Keith Stein

II. Mini Reviews
Karl: The Queen of Versailles, Attack the Block, The Guard
Keith Stein: We’re the Millers, Red Dawn (2012), This Is 40
Anthony Bruno: Young Adult, In a World…
Jason: The Lords of Salem, Insidious

III. Feature review of INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 2:
Jason: 9 ( Theater / Buy it! )

IV. Feature review of THE FAMILY:
Anthony Bruno: 3 ( Avoid )

V. A Postmortem on Andy’s and Karl’s Top 10 lists from Episode 050

VI. Wrap-Up
— Karl recognizes the loss of Ray Dolby

Links for this episode:

Anthony Bruno links:
Anthony Bruno.net
Anthony Bruno on Twitter: @AnthonyBruno505
Book recommendation: The Iceman: The True Story of a Cold-Blooded Killer by Anthony Bruno

Keith Stein’s links:
The Donut Show
Bee Potion.com
Krispy Kreme Film Festival

Follow Movie Podcast Weekly on Twitter: @MovieCastWeekly

Check out THE DONUT SHOW
Especially for HORROR FANS: Horror Movie Podcast.com
Listen to Jason’s Movie Stream Cast here: Movie Stream Cast.com

Special thanks goes out to singer-songwriter Frederick Ingram and the voice talents of Midnight Corey Graham from The Electric Chair Podcast, Willis Wheeler from the Terror Troop Podcast and Mr. Ron Baird for their help with our recommendation segment intros.

We’d also like to thank The Dave Eaton Element and Dave Eaton himself for the use of his music for our theme song. Today is Dave’s birthday — happy birthday, Dave!

If you like what we do here at Movie Podcast Weekly, please subscribe and leave us a review in iTunes. If you want to support the show, we have PayPal buttons in our right-hand sidebar where you can make a one-time donation or you can become a recurring donor for just $2 per month.

You can always contact us by e-mailing MoviePodcastWeekly@gmail.com. Or you can call and leave us a voice mail at: (801) 382-8789. And you can leave us a comment in the show notes for this episode.

Thank you for listening, and join us again next Monday for Movie Podcast Weekly.

16 thoughts on “Movie Podcast Weekly Ep. 051: The Family (2013) and Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013)

  1. I’m not sure quitting a movie after 15 minutes if not engaged is a rule I ever want to have. I feel like Jay, if I don’t have the whole picture I can’t really criticize it. Sometimes films drag on purpose to amp up the rest of the film. I wasn’t particularly find of Attack The Block early on but ended up loving it, and it kills me when someone tells me they didn’t finish Drive, it’s a slow burn but well worth it to me. Jason, did you mention Darth Maul to me before I saw Insidious? Cause I remember saying that too. And I’m shocked that Pet Semetary is the scariest film in your opinion. I thought kids didn’t scare you?

    • on that leaving movie topic, i think these days I do agree that it has a point. I walked out on a few movies in the recent years, and to some others I started the DVD/BlueRay and 20min or so into the movie I say, this is totally lame, and then stopped it. I am OK with slow burn movies, the pure drama, complex movie languages etc, but the low quality writing and directing does show in the first 20 or so minutes for you to tell if you will like the movie or not, especially the entertainment value of the movies.

      on the other hand, how many movies you tell yourself, this is awesome! only 5 – 10 min into the movie? have you ever stop the movie there because you know it is going to be great and you want to come back and enjoy the movie in full length when you are ready, or have the right company to share the movie with together? well I do, and these days I do it more often.

    • I tend to agree with you Hammer. Finish what you start. I haven’t walked out of a movie since I was a teenager, but I am guilty of watching a DVD in fast-forward occasionally (maybe just once or twice a year) if I’m not engaged–a trick I learned from a film professor of mine. He’d always say that he knew a movie was well constructed if he could follow the plot in fast-forward, something like what Hitchcock used to say about a good film being watchable with the sound off. Not that I’d ever recommend either. I’m in favor of sitting down and taking in the full experience in one sitting.

  2. When I watched Queen of Versailles, the thought that kept coming through my mind over and over is that Jackie acted similarly to a poor person that has won the lottery. They spent their money on McDonalds and Wal-Mart and seemed to have a quantity vs quality mentality. They had a garage full of brand new but peice of crap bikes from Wal-mart, and 5 of the same board game. They had no sense of refinement or taste – it seemed like excess was the only outlet they had for their wealth. They did not value things that i think many wealthy people value like education. The longer I watched the more I felt like their wealth had become a prison to them.

    To me the saddest scene is the kid who sleeps in the nanny’s 50 square foot bedroom. The only connection he has to a “mother” is with the nanny. The kids are going to have issues in their lives that no amount of money will be able to cure.

    There were parts that were a bit hard to stomach – Jackie’s comments about how they had not gotten any bailouts was almost too much to take. They were also very critical of the banks getting them addicted to the easy money and then taking it away. Rich criticism from someone that made their money in such a disgusting industry.

  3. Just wanted to clarify my statement above regarding the “poor”. Poor to me suggests a certain mentality vs someone who just lacks money. I think you can have no money and be flat broke and not be “poor”. I think Queen of Versailles would also make a great case that you can have ungodly amounts of money and still be “poor”

  4. Hammer,
    Everyone has said the red-faced demon in “Insidious” reminds them of Darth Maul, so that’s a common criticism of that movie. Thankfully, he makes no appearance in the sequel.

    And you’re right, evil kids don’t scare me. The Gage character in Pet Sematary is the least scariest part of the movie. What happens to him midway through the movie is horrifying, however… No, Pet Sematary is scary because of its myriad aspects of horror or horrifying elements, such as: zombies, slash murders, ghosts, disturbing the dead, death of a child, Zelda—period!, etc. Listen to Ep. 013 of The Weekly Horror Movie Podcast, where Terror Tovey and I list all the reasons why it’s scary:

    http://horrormoviepodcast.com/the-weekly-horror-movie-podcast-ep-013-get-muddy-get-bloody/

    Chad — I loved your observation about the Queen of V. living like a poor person who won the lottery, with her McDonald’s and Walmart sprees. Excellent point. Author Richard Paul Evans calls that “The Happy Meal Mentality.” I know it well, unfortunately…

  5. Interesting discussion about movie genre. If a movie makes people laugh much, doesn’t it make the movie comedy? Then if the movie horrified audience, why should it not be under the genre, horror? Seven and silence of lamb are not horror movies because the it has mortal as bad guys, so only supernatural or zombie theme can be horror movies?

    • I’m convinced people deny a movie the horror tag if it’s a truly great film as though horror films are beneath the art of the cinema or something. If there are great characters and such it is impossible to classify it as horror. Like Jaws, Alien, Silence of the Lambs and The Sixth Sense, it just seems those are films people feel the need to classify otherwise when they seem to fit even if they also fit in another genre.

  6. Wow, I’m sad I missed this episode, and not just because I nearly died in Alaska. So much I’d have loved to talk about … The Queen of Versailles, Attack the Block, We’re the Millers, This Is 40, Young Adult, In a World, The Lords of Salem … Quite a list of great discussion movies. Can’t wait to hear your coverage and be back on the next ep!

  7. In defense of Andy’s top actresses choices, he originally created the list as top actresses under 40, right? So Angelina Jolie was just too old. As for bad Angelina movies, what about Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow? I saw some of that movie on television a while back…painful. The Tourist is another Jolie film that I was never able to finish because it was so dull and uninteresting.

    Josh, your scolding the listeners a while back struck a chord with me and I am trying to dabble in more documentary viewings. I watched Queen of Versailles, per your request. I agree with Karl and others. Pretty well made and very captivating but definitely a one-timer. I also saw 102 Minute that Changed America. That was powerful, sobering stuff. Thanks for the recommendations.

    • I guess, for me, the reason to buy most documentaries is to share them. So, I buy a film like Queen of Versailles because is is generally a people-pleaser, a story and characters people tend to find enthralling (in a train-wreck kind of way), and I’m always looking for these “gateway drugs” to documentaries that will turn someone from a casual views into a fan. That’s why I even recommend crap like the Elmo and Beiber documentaries to certain people, because I know it will turn them on to non-fiction. And on that note, really do check out The Imposter, Vance. It is a fascinating thriller and I’ve yet to find one person who didn’t love it.

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