Movie Podcast Weekly Ep. 068: Lone Survivor (2014) and Her (2013) and The Very Best Movies of the 1990s

In Episode 068 of Movie Podcast Weekly, your All-American heroes welcome GEEK CAST RY to the show for a hulking 43-minute review of Peter Berg’s Lone Survivor. Next, Josh is your “Lone Reviewer” in his praise of the latest Spike Jonze’s meta-masterpiece about love, loss, and loneliness in the near future, Her. And finally, this fearsome five-some showdown, in a Mexican stand-off of sorts, with more than 10 lists and 100 movie recommendations from the 1990s. Who will come out victorious?

Movie Podcast Weekly features four hosts (and frequent guests), who give you their verdict on at least one new movie release that’s currently in theaters, mini-reviews of what they’ve been watching lately, and specialty recommendation segments. New episodes release every single Monday.

SHOW NOTES — with Time Stamps!

( 00:00:00 ) I. Intro:
—This episode is dedicated to Andy’s Grandfather
—Welcome Geek Cast Ry
—Watch the Portlandia “Nerd PSA” here: YouTube
—Sundance possibilites
—Jason recommends Josh’s Movie Stream Cast
—Listener feedback
—Netflix complaints
—Stealing HBO premium content

( 00:14:54 ) II. Feature review of LONE SURVIVOR
GeekCast Ry: 8.5 (See it in Theaters / Buy It!)
Andy: 9.5 (See it in Theaters / Buy It!)
Karl: 10 ( See it in Theaters / Buy It! )
Jason: 10 ( See it in Theaters / Buy It! )

( 00:57:32 ) III. Feature review of HER:
Josh:
 10 ( See it in Theaters / Buy It! )
*Jeff Hammer: 9-9.5

( 01:13:43 ) IV. The Very Best Movies of the 90s

( 03:02:23 ) V. Wrap-Up
—Jason recommends the GeekCastLive! podcast
—GeekCastRy seconds the recommendation (plus, links below)
—Josh confirms Howard Cantour plagiarism of Justin M. Damiano
—Some Shia love and hate around his retirement from public life
—Josh says to check out MovieStreamCast.com
—Jason wishes his son Davy a “Happy Birthday!”

Next Monday on MPW we will review Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and Devil’s Due.

Links for this episode:

Follow GeekCastRy on Twitter: GeekCastRy

Check out GeekCastRy’s Podcast: GeekCastLive!

Check out GeekCastRy’s blog: GeekHarder

Jay of the Dead and Wolfman Josh talk horror with Dr. Shock on: Horror Movie Podcast

Get help managing you Netflix queue from Josh and Rachel on: Movie Stream Cast

Jason talks pop culture with Keith and Willis on: The Donut Show

We’d also like to thank The Dave Eaton Element and Dave Eaton himself for the use of his music for our theme song.

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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.

58 thoughts on “Movie Podcast Weekly Ep. 068: Lone Survivor (2014) and Her (2013) and The Very Best Movies of the 1990s

  1. 25 OTHER FILMS THAT COULD HAVE MADE MY LIST (especially if I’d made the list back in the 90s)

    Swingers
    Mallrats / Chasing Amy
    Billy Madison / Tommy Boy
    The Game
    Good Will Hunting
    Grosse Pointe Blank
    Dead Poets Society
    So I Married An Axe Murderer
    KIDS
    Magnolia
    Malcolm X
    Office Space
    Gattaca
    Fire in the Sky
    Welcome to the Dollhouse
    The Sixth Sense
    Interview with a Vampire / Bram Stoker’s Dracula
    My Own Private Idaho
    Reuben and Ed
    Forget Paris / City Slickers
    Point Break
    Wag the Dog
    Mystery Train / Dead Man
    Wild at Heart
    Last of the Mohicans

  2. I agree with Josh so much on the romantic beats. I feel like for such a great and artistic film, this could be pretty accessible for the general public. Jason, the discussions and how the relationship develops is amazing and hilarious! Especially when he plays a virtual reality type game. And what Josh said about expectations vs. where it goes is spot on too (what’s going on here?). Great film! Go see it!

  3. I love this show so much. 3+ hours and a bunch of movies I need to watch.

    No one mentioned What’s eating Gilbert Grape?

    When I think of Leonardo DiCaprio’s portrayal of Arnie, I like to think of his soon-to-follow role in Titanic. Then, I blend them together in my imagination.

    “I almost drowned!”

    “I’m king of the world, Gilbert!”

  4. Off the top of my head:

    10) The Matrix
    9) The Faculty- There are no faults Josh! Take it back!
    8) Home Alone / Rush Hour- I just figured I’d be less ridiculed for combining these. I love Home Alone for Christmas time and Rush Hour might be my favorite action comedy ever.
    7) Speed- C’mon guys! No way you guys (except Josh) don’t love this.
    6) American History X
    5) Leon: The Professional- really shocked the wasn’t mentioned (unless I missed it.)
    4) A Time to Kill- that cast! McConaugey’s first glance of greatness IMO.
    3) Ed Wood
    2) American Beauty- a masterpiece.
    1) Scream- the greatest horror movie ever made.

    • Good list. SPEED is probably in my Top 5 actions movies of all time. I absolutely love THE FACULTY, flaws and all. I was somehow thinking it was after the 90s and I never came across it in my research or it would have made my honorable mentions. MATRIX was in the same boat. Should have been on my “most important” list but I think of it as a 2000 film. A TIME TO KILL nearly made my list because I love it to death, but I love all Grisham and couldn’t find room on my list. LEON was on somebody’s list and almost made mine. I didn’t put any Christmas movies on my list, just to make things easier for myself or HOME ALONE could have made it. I think your two AMERICAN movies are good, but just overrated enough not to make my list. The only one I really question on your list is RUSH HOUR. I’m not sure I can even bring myself to revisit it.

      • You people just hate America! Don’t like Hustle, call Beauty and History X overrated, no mention of Pie and then you go and include an American film about making a terrible movie! 🙂

        Interesting tidbit about A Time To Kill, Matthew McConaughey was originally set to play Cobb and his True Detective co-star Woody Harrelson was pushing to play Jake Brigance but John Grisham nixed the idea and McConaughey decided to read for the role. In my opinion Grisham made a good call, although I don’t know if I would have thought so prior to seeing the film.

        Revisit Rush Hour!

  5. Jason here.

    First of all, Levi (The Unknown Murderer) cracks me up and made me laugh out loud. Levi, we’ll be playing your voice mail next week… (There was already enough drama during this show; your voice mail will surely incite more.) ha ha

    And since the natives were getting restless, I didn’t read off my favorite ’90s Guilty Pleasures that I had prepared for this episode, so here they are:

    Jason’s Top 10 1990s Decade Guilty Pleasures [That He Loves (and You Should Too)]
    In no particular order…
    From Dusk Till Dawn
    Alien: Resurrection — Screw you guys! It’s better than you realize!
    Independence Day
    Armageddon
    Very Bad Things
    Blue Streak — Yes, with Martin Lawrence. Nearly made my 2nd Top 10.
    Mickey Blue Eyes
    Multiplicity
    Death Warrant — Van Damme in prison ( “I don’t ‘punk'”)
    Judgment Night — (should have been much better, but alas…)

    And here’s a double feature that I’d highly recommend if you need to entertain with a very PG movie party with mixed company:
    Maverick (1994)
    Oscar (1991)
    These movies are way better than they have any right to be…

    And finally, here is a noteworthy fact about the 1990s decade:
    Michael Apted’s 35 Up and 42 Up were both released in the ’90s decade; whereas, the 1960s and 1980s decades only had one installment released from the series.

    JP

    • Hey, why didn’t you defend Armageddon on the show? 😉

      I’m looking forward to the drama that I may cause, but I’m a coward. So yes, I will enjoy listening to that from a distance.

      • Well, because Armageddon is a dumb movie. ha ha. Plus, Deep Impact had already been praised, and really, there’s not much praising that can be done on Armageddon’s behalf after discussing Deep Impact.

        I do love Armageddon, though, despite myself.

        ” … Basically, the worst parts of the Bible … ” —Truman (Billy Bob Thornton)

    • I’m sorry, but having just revisited MAVERICK, it is not better than it deserves to be. It is much worse. It was written by one of the greatest western writers of all time, it had two HUGE movie stars from that era in it, it was based on a popular TV show from a generation before with it’s own star that still had sheen and appeared in the film … I’ve always defended MAVERICK as a fun, rollicking film, but it really is worse than it should be. A decent guilty pleasure, though.

  6. Man, a lot of good movies in the 90s. A few movies that I didn’t hear you mention that I’d add to my ‘favorites of the 90s’ list: Awakenings (1990), The Thin Red Line (1998), and The Iron Giant (1999).

  7. Jason, I have True Detective in my Plex library. So if you have a Plex user name (free to make on plex.tv) then I can share my library with you as a friend – just mail me your Plex user name.
    For the legal issues, downloading from internet is legal where I live, so my Sickbeard client download the episode 100% legally for me. As Plex is US based software I assume that sharing libraries between friends is legal in US too, otherwise they would need to remove this functionality from it. So IMHO we are all legal here.

    • BTW again, you titled it ‘Stealing HBO premium content’. IMHO you are not stealing anything. You said in the podcast that you are willing to pay for the content but HBO made no reasonable access which you could use. They are simply way behind the technology and if they are unable to deliver their content at reasonable price in the same speed as they use digital media to advertise then this is their own fault.

      • Well, I was mostly joking by titling the segment that way, but I’m not sure the two of us will ever agree exactly on this point, Michal. IMO, artists have to eat too, even if they have a distributor that is behind the times. Just because you want something, doesn’t give you the right to take it, even if you were willing to pay for it. HBO makes their money from subscriptions, so they want people to subscribe to watch their content. It is really no different from Netflix in that way.

        • Josh, I’m not making rules. Environment changes and species should either adopt or die. Music industry had it earlier and I’m really happy how they adopted. In 80 and 90 going to a ‘big name’ concert was very hard, very few events with very expensive and hard to get tickets. Nowadays, ‘big names’ are touring all year around and this is IMHO the way they should earn their money after all. By performing and not by taking charge for each listening of their piece.

          • And I’m nearly 100% certain that what you’re describing is illegal here. And loaning a username to someone probably is as well. I’m not mad at anyone, but if we’re going to do things let us not pretend it’s totally legit if it isn’t.

          • @Hammer (strange, your post does not have the reply button).
            I’m not advocating the situation but only describing it. Of course I don’t know what is legal and what not in US, especially as every state has different jurisdiction. As for The Netherlands were I live, our government made official statement that downloading from internet is legal here although this is not in line what other European countries do – for example downloading is still illegal in France. When they say what is legal then I have no problem with it, also taking in account the fact that the income tax is about 50% here. The movie industry can simply cut downloading from internet by not making digital copies available. Show movies only in cinemas like before.
            An interesting move is also the fact that more and more content provides are dropping copy protection like DRM. It would be interesting to have a glass bowl and look into the future how the industry will look like in 10 years. I’m 100% sure that current status quo regarding copyrights won’t stand.

        • “And I’m nearly 100% certain that what you’re describing is illegal here. And loaning a username to someone probably is as well.”

          How loaning a username can be more illegal than inviting your friends to watch a movie at your home? Is the only difference the technology?

          • The obvious difference is the person who paid for the service or DVD not being present. But then you might say, how is it different than loaning a DVD to someone? Well, if you loan a DVD, it’s a single DVD and can only be loaned to one person at a time. You also paid probably 15-20 US dollars for it. So even if you loan it to 20 people, that’s an average of $1 paid for each viewing. But if you loan, say, you’re Netflix login to 20 people, there are 100,000 titles. All 20 of those people could stream nightly and you’d have 600 viewings for under $8 in a month. Certainly seems it should be illegal.

      • We’ve talked about this on the show before. In The Netherlands, there is apparently a fee that the government pays artists in order to make the downloading legal. At least that is what I remember from when I researched it before.

        • Oh, I’m not saying Michal is doing anything wrong in The Netherlands, just that for us here I think the loaning username thing is either illegal or at least against their rules. So maybe they can just self regulate to prevent the mass sharing of usernames.

          • I was not intending to loan any username to anyone (it was discussed in the show to loan username from ‘family’). I’ve proposed to share my Plex media library. Plex is US based media library software and it has a functionality of sharing media libraries between friends. I’ve assumed that because this software origins from US then all its functionality must be legal otherwise one can sue the company https://plex.tv/ It would be pity though as Plex is IMHO the best media library software available now, much better than XBMC.

  8. Great show! I’m surprised no one mentioned Twister. It’s a really fun FX fest that may look dated now, but still. And what about The Lion King?! It’s only one of the best animated films of all time! Long live the king.

  9. I love making these kinds of lists, so before listening to this episode, I did a quick blitz of ’90s releases on Wikipedia and hammered out the following picks. I almost feel like my Forgotten/Overlooked List is like a second Top 10, though some of my Honorable Mentions would surely land there as well.

    The Big 10
    1. The Matrix
    2. Dances With Wolves
    3. The Winslow Boy
    4. The Last of the Mohicans
    5. Tremors
    6. The Hudsucker Proxy
    7. Galaxy Quest
    8. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
    9. The Iron Giant
    10. Sense and Sensibility

    Honorable Mentions (in order of preference): Toy Story 2, A River Runs Through it, Hoop Dreams, The Fugitive, Titanic, Toy Story, Amistad, Emma, Apollo 13, Crimson Tide, The Big Lebowski, The Truman Show, Jerry Maguire, Shakespeare in Love, Saving Private Ryan, The Hunt for Red October, A Few Good Men, Braveheart, Fargo, Clear and Present Danger, Notting Hill

    Overlooked/Forgotten
    1. Sneakers
    2. Gattaca
    3. That Thing You Do!
    4. 12 Monkeys
    5. Dave
    6. Election
    7. Joe Versus the Volcano
    8. Sleepy Hollow
    9. Hamlet (1990)
    10. Quigley Down Under

    Guilty Pleasure
    1. Independence Day
    2. Ever After
    3. Bowfinger
    4. Oscar
    5. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

      • I just couldn’t leave The Winslow Boy out of my Top 10, lack of pop cultural impact be damned. It was probably never well known enough in the first place to be considered forgotten, but it’s definitely been overlooked. Amusingly, it’s the other way around with most of the flicks on my Forgotten/Overlooked list. Most of them weren’t very overlooked at the time (except for maybe Joe Versus the Volcano and, to a lesser extent, Election), but almost all of them have been forgotten to some extent.

  10. As a side note, if I’m listening casually while working – its very hard to keep track of everything said – especially in the roundtable format where everyone gives their number 8, number 7 etc. Would be nice if all the lists were published afterward. I know that sometimes you do this, but it would be a nice reference.

    Considering the above that i may have missed it – (my apologies if it was mentioned) but I was surprised that American History X was not mentioned. Given there were over 100 movies mentioned this seems like an oversight.

    G

    • We go back and forth on posting the lists. Will everybody listen if we post them? One time Jason made it password protected for people who listened all the the through. That seemed like a good idea. But to be TOTALLY honest, because of the “round-table” format, it was difficult for me to track the lists myself, and since Jason didn’t get the episode to me until late Monday, I thought it best just to get it up instead of listening 3 times through to get all of the picks. This is a good point though, we should be better organized on this. I’m going to institute a policy that everyone email me their lists after the show for the show notes.

  11. @Michal, Josh and Hammer:
    This is a fascinating debate. Thank you all for jumping in the ring on this subject, because it’s actually quite relevant to the era we’re living in. Three things and a final word for Michal below:

    1. Copyright law as it pertains to publishing and “using” (for lack of a better word) Web content is still in its relative infancy. Setting aside audio-visual media for a moment — just the written word alone (especially where it pertains to books and journalistic enterprises) still has its gray eras in terms of online citations and so forth. I won’t spell it out here, but you can find myriad debates (even in audio podcast form) about this one aspect of the issue. My favorite, however, is listening to the battles among those of the “enthusiast press,” like Variety, Hollywood Reporter, etc. In short, a lot of matters pertaining to the legal usage of digital media hasn’t found precedence yet in the courts — especially since the Internet is an international arena.

    2. Which leads me to my second point: As Michal has stated in his comments above, it seems that the rules in The Netherlands are somewhat different from what we’ve come to know or expect in the United States. So, I think the reason this seems a little foggy is because our laws about these things seem to be designed for use within our respective nations; whereas, I think the way this “comes out in the wash” internationally is still ambiguous and yet to be determined. Example: In Country A it’s like “this.” But in Country B, it’s like “that.” But it seems yet to be determined what it’s like where these converge internationally in C.

    3. Finally, I understand and respect Josh’s passion on the subject. Until I knew Josh and a guy named Barrett Hilton, I had no idea or consideration for the plight of the filmmaker, whether that filmmaker is Spielberg or an indie person. But Josh and Barrett have helped to put a face on their challenges, at least for me. And I know that Josh, for example, works very hard (harder than he should have to) to make a living as a filmmaker, to support his family. So, I understand why Josh would fiercely try to protect the filmmakers’ interests … which is why I often feel bad for panning a poor film (though, I still do), but that’s another matter entirely.

    Having said all of the above, Michal, thank you SO MUCH for your kind offer to share your account with me. That is wonderfully considerate of you, Sir. Sincerely. You’re the best.

    Thanks Michal, Hammer and Josh for your awesome comments.
    Jason

  12. Hi guys great show

    loved all the lists and agree with all the big blockbuster titles. It was only when I was listening to the show I realized what a big decade the 90s was for great movies.

    I worked in a video store for a few years in the 90s when I was a teenager. Two great movie that I don’t remember anyone mentioning are “Philadelphia” and “In the name of the father”. Maybe I missed them. In the name of the Father was a great movie and of particular relevance to me being from Ireland and had quite a few Oscar nominations if I remember correctly.

    A few guilty pleasures / often overlooked that I loved from this era
    1) Carlito’s Way
    2) Blood in Blood Out (Epic 3.5 hour movie)
    3) In the Line of Fire
    4) Blown Away (Tommy Lee Jones)

    • I’m 100% with you on IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER. I forgot about that one. BLOWN AWAY was also a favorite of mine during the 80s and would have made a “guilty pleasures” list for me now if I’d made one.

  13. Wow Jason… just watched Out of the Furnace. I cannot believe how much I disagree with your masterpiece film. It’s slow and dull. What should have happened at least by the 30 minute mark is drawn out to the one-hour mark. There are 30 minutes or more that could be cut from this film without mattering at all. There’s too little Woody and save two scenes, there’s nothing all that terrifying about the character. Once things get rolling, it’s very stupid. I mean the cops supposedly can’t get any answers but these two guys just go up there and say hey where can I find “whatever” and get right to where they want to be in like 15 minutes.

  14. HaHa! I think Pulp Fiction might be the first “R” rated movie I saw after I gave up giving up “R” rated movies! That made me smile so much!

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