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Buckle up! For Episode 069, you’ve got Andy, Karl, and Jason — ranting and raving about the nominations for the 68th Academy Awards, among other weighty matters. And though Josh was at a Sundance screening, he still sent us two clips of supplemental Josh material, including his review of “Nebraska.” Thanks, Josh! We bring you reviews of “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit,” “Devil’s Due” and “Ride Along” — all three new releases in theaters. But Andy and Jason also saw Josh’s recommendation, “The Act of Killing.” And this Mini Review turns into an epic, unofficial 26-minute Feature Review.
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
I. Intro
— MPW Meet-Up
— Listener appreciation (Thanks, Scott!)
— Natalie (Jason’s wife) and Shawn (Andy’s wife) launch the Book Review Podcast
— Next week: Josh’s Sundance Report 2014
— Feedback on our Best of the ’90s show
II. MPW’s Reaction to 86th Academy Award Nominees
III. Mini Reviews
Andy: Broken City, The Internship, This Is 40, The Guilt Trip, A Single Shot
IV. Impromptu Feature Review: THE ACT OF KILLING (2013)
Andy = 10 ( Rental )
Jason = Refused to rate it, and could not recommend it to anyone.
V. Mini Reviews (Continued…)
Jason: Half Past Dead
Karl: Stolen
VI. Feature Review: RIDE ALONG (2014)
Karl = 7 ( Rental )
VII. Feature Review: JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT (2014)
Andy = 7 ( High-Priority Rental )
VIII. Feature Review: DEVIL’S DUE (2014)
Jason = 2 ( Avoid )
IX. Feature Review: NEBRASKA (2014)
Josh = 6.5 ( Rental )
X. Genre Recommendation Segments:
ROBOTIC ROMANCES WITH KARL HUDDLESTON:
Lucky Number Slevin (2006)
JAY OF THE DEAD’S CREEPS AND CRIME:
Creeps: Pumpkinhead (1988)
XI. Wrap-Up
— Thank you to Shane and Michal for your recurring donations!
— Stuff we didn’t get to cover (that we hope to cover next time)
— Reminder: MPW Meet-Up! Sundance “Dead Snow 2” screening on January 24, 2014
— Happy birthday to Karl on January 22! 50 years!
Jason highly recommends:
1. The “Gravity” trailer: Watch this first
2. The “IKEA” spoof trailer: Watch this second
Links for this episode:
Check out our wives’ Book Review Podcast
Follow Movie Podcast Weekly on Twitter: @MovieCastWeekly
Jason talks pop culture on THE DONUT SHOW
Jason and Josh, especially for horror fans: Horror Movie Podcast
Josh covers streaming movies: Movie Stream Cast
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.
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Thank you for listening, and join us again next Monday for Movie Podcast Weekly.
Redford seems to blame distributor for his Oscar snub: http://bit.ly/Kw1L4v
Yes we should get together to watch The Grandmaster. My friend has a copy on blu-ray, and it is the Korean Version that is 20 minutes longer than the domestic version.
That sounds awesome! Wish I could be there… I can bring cookies!
“Prisoners” wasn’t nominated for anything? I thought it got a cinematography nod…
Anyway, I’ve only seen a couple of the nominees for Best Picture, but the buzz says that it might be a pretty exciting year. “12 Years a Slave”, “Gravity”, and “American Hustle” keep jumping up and down the top spot for the main prize. I can see how a lot of people might be disillusioned, but I have a soft spot for awards shows of all trades, no matter how big, lavish, and self indulgent they are.
EDIT: Although I have an exception to that rule for the Golden Globes. See my Donut Show post.
EDIT 2 (Wow, I’m not very attentive today — sorry about that): “Prisoners” is indeed up for Cinematography, as is pointed out. I started drafting my comment before that was mentioned by Josh, and forgot to edit it out before posting it.
Okay, on a lighter note Jay, what you’re telling me Half Past Dead is a lot like Three Kings? If you want a better Steven Seagal movie with a rapper who can actually act, check out Exit Wounds.
Now on a darker note: Jay, I didn’t even like The Act of Killing that much, but your decision to not rate it bugs me. Let us think on this. Your objection seems to be that you’re being subjected to seeing depictions of these events. In high school you had to read about and probably see depictions as well. That was beyond your choice, it’s called History. Now, secondarily it seems you have an objection to the perpetrator being given a voice. In this film that perpetrator comes off looking bad, right? Now if you have an issue cause you found him likable, despite the atrocities (which you didn’t say) then I could probably understand your position. But if you watched it and saw a mass murderer who eventually realized what an atrocity he had comitted, then I don’t completely understand. Here’s why: In 12 Years A Slave, Michael Fassbender plays a slave owner who owned slaves and tortured and quite likely killed them. Now whether or not his name was changed for the film or the book, I don’t know, but he represents a real person nonetheless. We see how horrible the man is, but the mere fact that Fassbender acts so well and the fact that it takes the monsters who were slaveowners to have this film exist, to me makes 12 Years A Slave more morally problematic than The Act of Killing. I mean Fassbender might reach a pinnacle of a career thanks to that slaveowner.
About dealing with cruelty of historical real events, I am with Andy. No one likes to re-live the horrific time; but if we do not truly understand it from the humanity perspective, we either will make the same mistake again sometime later, or when other people are making the same mistake, we do not know the right response to stop them or at least protecting ourselves. Watching the films of this kind giving you a deeper view of human behaviour from both individual minds and group perspective and it should always be a valuable learning.
and just light-hearted statement of “I understand that” or “that is terrible” simply doesn’t cut it.
My favourite film of all time is Schindler’s List, By the way.
Yeah, J, so there. Hammer is right, and so am I. Neener Neener.
Yes Andy, agreed. Neener neener indeed.
Guys. Since Jay said Devil’s Due didn’t deliver, and Karl suggested a new rating system, I thought for sure he was going to suggest 1-10 cm dilated. Just had to share that thought.
HAHAHAHA
This “Act of Killing” debate isn’t done, so everybody buckle up for next week’s podcast.
Also: Today is January 22 — Happy birthday, Karl!
Jason
Happy Birthday Karl!
From Stan
I watched Captain Phillips on blu-ray and while I have not seen all the other candidates for sound mixing, it is certainly deserving of the Academy Award in that category. Best sound I have heard in a long time. From the deep rumblings of the ships engine, to the echo of the metal rooms, it was totally immersive experience. It really felt like you were on the ship.
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is a well-made mediocre movie. I think Andy’s comment is spot-on. It is highly predictable, very mild story arc and offers not many surprises at all.
I don’t think Chris Pine looks sharp enough – He looked thick for my spy prototype. The character is also rather blur, ex-marine-hero (or something like that) body shakes when seeing a hand gun, however do not require any field training, despite being an analyst for 10 years, can manage all the field activities like a pro, and still feel shocked about what is going on.
This is typical Pilot movie for starting up a franchise – the up-rising star get too thick and too sub-pro in the first half of the movie and levels up way too quickly for the second half.
Kiara, I was never a fan but I had to say she looked hips better in Love Actually than this. It feels almost like the camera man hated her – there are some really ugly shots of her through the movie.
“I… I work for the CIA.”
“Oh, Thanks God!”
Hug.
and the Russians really look like from the movies in 80’s.
The best thing happened in this movie is Kevin Costner. He steels the show for the most part without even putting up much effort. Kevin has been matured so much in the late years I think his career is finally back on the rising track.
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit really is a 6.0 effort in my book. It is not an Action movie, but more of a spy movie. It is very reasonably paced so throughout the movie, so you will not get bored watching. However, you will also not get wow-ed neither because you know exactly what is happening next. This is not Jason Bourne movie, this is not James Bond movie and this is not Ethan Hunt movie. I will be interested in seeing the next instalment to be honest, to see if the character is turning any more interesting. But for now, it is really just a rental.