Categories
Back Seat Producers Season 09 Shows

BSP Episode 326: Don Jon

Join the gang as they discuss the 2013 film Don Jon.

  • Directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt
  • Written by Joseph Gordon-Levitt
  • Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore, Tony Danza, Brie Larson

Don Jon is Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s directorial debut and he also wrote the script. The kid sure has grown up since he keeps showing up in good movies, so much so I only sometimes think about Tommy Solomon from Third Rock from the Sun. He’s been crushing as an actor (Inception, Lincoln, The Dark Knight Rises, Looper), but this one sits more squarely on him as creator. He did well: good movie, surprisingly more depth than we expected, and interesting character developments. JGL plays Jon, a Jersey-fied gym rat with a porn addiction. Then he meets Barbara and he thinks things are really turning around. Then it gets complicated, as it always does.

Worth noting:

  • Don Jon surprised us by bringing up interesting questions and being much deeper than we anticipated. Surprisingly, it got straight male relationships right. It also has some interesting things to say about the idea of perfection, how adult relationships work, honesty, and all topics widely relatable.
  • Watch for the curtains scene. We had a lot to say about it.
  • The difference between porn for men and porn for women.
  • Tony Danza: the man’s still got it.
  • Why New Jersey? Could this movie be set anywhere else?
  • Also, Julianne Moore: what an actress.
  • Bechdel test and women in movies. Again. Ladies are important, too.
  • Google “age of consent.” Trust us. You won’t be disappointed.
  • Stop making up dumb elemental materials. Just don’t.

Featured in this episode:

  • Tony
  • Darrell
  • Jolie
  • Sam
Categories
Back Seat Box Office

Back Seat Box Office #198

Help Support Lilly’s Pediatric Cancer Treatment
Lilly and her family need your help (Brittney’s video)

Jeff

1. Lucy
2. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
3. Hercules
4. The Purge : Anarchy
5. Planes

Art

1. Hercules
2. Lucy
3. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
4. The Purge : Anarchy
5. Planes

Art’s House
Jeff, Art: Happy Christmas
Father Beast: A Most Wanted Man

Link:
America’s Favorite ‘Star Wars’ Movies (And Least Favorite Characters)

Categories
Back Seat Producers Season 09 Shows

BSP Episode 325: Attack of the Crab Monsters

Join the gang as they discuss the 1957 film Attack of the Crab Monsters.

  • Directed by Roger Corman
  • Written by Charles B. Griffith
  • Starring Richard Garland, Pamela Duncan, Russell Johnson

Attack of the Crab Monsters is the responsibility of Roger Corman, B movie producer extraordinaire and king of the paper mache monsters. This short 62 minute gem was made to be part of a double feature for the drive-in movie crowd and it’s obvious all expenses were spared. The story begins with a group of scientists traveling to a remote island which just happens to be populated with a mutated, giant crab monster. Just one, despite the title telling us otherwise. From there, details and plot are, shall we say thin, but ultimately we find that a few make it out to tell the tale of the crab monster with trash bags for eyelids. Still, a B movie can be a lot of fun which is why we didn’t criticize this movie nearly as much as, say Gigli.

Worth noting:

  • Welcome back David! You were… missed???
  • Tony’s walking and avoiding beef. David is doing none of those things.
  • The story was weird but it was short. It got weird in the middle, too. These factors may appeal to you.
  • Your weekly pop culture roundup: Ninja Warrior, Naked and Afraid, HBO Go is like a stalker ex-girlfriend now, The Wire as the Best Show Ever on Television, Oz, Game of Thrones.
  • Stump stuff. Don’t ask.
  • Let’s talk about the worst movies you’ve seen.
  • Clone Wars TV show, lens flares, and Schrödinger’s Lightsaber.
  • In which we crush the dreams of small children just watching How to Train Your Dragon II.
  • What happens when crabs make well-reasoned arguments.

Featured in this episode:

  • Tony
  • Darrell
  • Jolie
  • David
Categories
Back Seat Box Office Shows

BSBO – Greetings from San Francisco

Help Support Lilly’s Pediatric Cancer Treatment
Lilly and her family need your help (Brittney’s video)

Jeff

1. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
2. Planes : Fire and Rescue
3. Sex Tape
4. The Purge : Anarchy
5. Tammy

Art’s House: I Origins

 

(Note: There is no attached podcast episode this week.  Enjoy the silence, or for God’s sake, go check out the new Weird Al videos.    – Tony)

Categories
Back Seat Producers Season 09 Shows

BSP Episode 324: Groundhog Day

Join the gang as they discuss the 1993 film Groundhog Day.

  • Directed by Harold Ramis
  • Written by Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis
  • Starring Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Chris Elliott, Stephen Tobolowsky, Brian Doyle-Murray

Groundhog Day is the pivotal 1993 comedy film from Harold Ramis, rest in peace, comedy writer and director extraordinaire and behind the likes of Ghostbusters, Meatballs, Caddyshack, and SCTV. Groundhog Day enjoys a comfortable place among the great comedies of all time, a comfortable 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and it’s listed on AFI’s 100 Films, 100 Laughs. You know, the comedy list. It’s the story of Phil Conners, played by the perfectly mugging Bill Murray, a Pittsburgh weatherman who travels to Punxsutawney, PA on Groundhog Day to do some fluff reporting on the event. However, he finds he keep waking up on the same day over and over again in a time loop, beginning each day with the irritating sounds of Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe.”

Worth noting:

  • Look who’s getting healthy?!?
  • Rules and the time travel movie. Sometimes comedies do it better.
  • Your obligatory Europe’s “The Final Countdown” mention. Ladies.
  • Autograph’s “Turn up the Radio” shown below. You’ve been pre-warned about the hair metalness.
  • Bill Murray is so punk rock.
  • Obligatory Game of Thrones updates. Spoilers of Season 3, a year after the fact, ahead.
  • What does the ending teach us and what are the rules? Serious discussion ensues with little to no penis jokes.
  • Edge of Tomorrow shows up again because it’s sci-fi Groundhog Day.

Featured in this episode:

  • Tony
  • Darrell
  • Jolie

And now, one for the ladies…

Categories
Back Seat Box Office Shows

Back Seat Box Office #197

We are back! This episode we wrap up Season 8 (the main game  and Art’s House) and begin the silliness of Season 9. 

Help Support Lilly’s Pediatric Cancer Treatment
Lilly and her family need your help (Brittney’s video)
And the winner is…  (This is the video of the drawing)

Jeff, Art

1. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
2. Transformers 4
3. Tammy
4. 22 Jump Street
5. How To Train Your Dragon 2

Art’s House:

Jeff: Land Ho!
Art: Boyhood

Categories
Back Seat Book Club Shows

Back Seat Book Club – Book Twenty-Two: Rainbows End

Author: Vernor Vinge

Published: 2006

Tor

Plot Summary – A science-fiction thriller set in a place and time as exciting and strange as any far-future world: San Diego, California, 2025.

Robert Gu is a recovering Alzheimer’s patient. The world that he remembers was much as we know it today. Now, as he regains his faculties through a cure developed during the years of his near-fatal decline, he discovers that the world has changed and so has his place in it. He was a world-renowned poet. Now he is seventy-five years old, though by a medical miracle he looks much younger, and he’s starting over, for the first time unsure of his poetic gifts . Living with his son’s family, he has no choice but to learn how to cope with a new information age in which the virtual and the real are a seamless continuum, layers of reality built on digital views seen by a single person or millions, depending on your choice. But the consensus reality of the digital world is available only if, like his thirteen-year-old granddaughter Miri, you know how to wear your wireless access–through nodes designed into smart clothes–and to see the digital context–through smart contact lenses. 

With knowledge comes risk. When Robert begins to re-train at Fairmont High, learning with other older people what is second nature to Miri and other teens at school, he unwittingly becomes part of a wide-ranging conspiracy to use technology as a tool for world domination. 

In a world where every computer chip has Homeland Security built-in, this conspiracy is something that baffles even the most sophisticated security analysts, including Robert’s son and daughter-in law, two top people in the U.S. military. And even Miri, in her attempts to protect her grandfather, may be entangled in the plot. 

As Robert becomes more deeply involved in conspiracy, he is shocked to learn of a radical change planned for the UCSD Geisel Library; all the books there, and worldwide, would cease to physically exist. He and his fellow re-trainees feel compelled to join protests against the change. With forces around the world converging on San Diego, both the conspiracy and the protest climax in a spectacular moment as unique and satisfying as it is unexpected.

Quick Thoughts:

  • Two novels here, one is really good.
  • Dangling shit
  • What is Rabbit?
  • Robert Gu, least sympathetic protagonist ever?
  • Good futurism and interesting setting.
  • Where are the animals?
  • Where are the poor people?
  • other characters are also there, and maybe interesting

Recorded: 05/26/14

“So much technology, so little talent.” 

Next Time: Black Dog by Rachel Neumier

Categories
Back Seat Box Office Shows

Back Seat Box Office – Happy 4th of July

We are skipping this week so we will have to defer the start of Season 9 until next week. But still send us your picks in the comments or voice mail. 

Help Support Lilly’s Pediatric Cancer Treatment
Lilly and her family need your help (Brittney’s video)

Jeff

1. Transformers 4
2. Tammy
3. Earth To Echo
4. Deliver Us From Evil
5. How To Train Your Dragon 2

Art

1. Transformers 4
2. Tammy
3. Deliver Us From Evil
4. Earth To Echo
5. 22 Jump Street

Art’s House:
Jeff: The Girl on the Train
Art: Life Itself