Movies Episodes

Dan had at least three different attempts to define a Top 5 this week proving just how desperately in need of rebooting this part of the show is, finally settling on the Top 5 Bands for us to discuss. DAY SHIFT is Netflix's latest exclusive and is produced by the 87Eleven team, creators of the JOHN WICK franchise and the recently reviewed on this very podcast NOBODY. Stunt coordinator JJ Perry makes his debut with this action comedy in which pool cleaning vampire hunter Bud Jablonski (Jamie Foxx...

Steve Martin apparently worked on the script for L.A. STORY for seven years before he and director Mick Jackson brought this romantic fantasy comedy to the big screen in 1991. Martin plays Harris K. Telemacher, a depressed weather presenter, trapped in an unfulfilling relationship with his socialite girlfriend and disheartened by the superficiality of the Los Angeles scene. After being dumped by his girlfriend and receiving cryptic relationship advice from a freeway sign he begins to fall for Sa...

This week’s themed content sees us discussing those people whose job it is to enforce the law as we start things off with a rigorous interrogation of the Top 5 Police Officers. Will a thorough application of the rules prevent us from hearing about one dad's favourite Traffic Warden? Sidey chose Hannes Halldórsson's 2021 gay buddy action spoof COP SECRET for us to review this week and we are awfully glad he did. Whilst investigating a mysterious criminal organisation which has been breaking into ...

Produced and directed by prolific Hong Kong auteur Johnnie To, PTU: POLICE TACTICAL UNIT (2003) spawned a multi film franchise about which none of us knew a thing. When Sergeant Lo (Lam Suet) has his service weapon stolen during an altercation with local gangsters putting his dreams of promotion at risk, uncompromising Sergeant Mike Ho (Simon Yam) of the PTU gives him until dawn to recover it, but their situation starts to become more complicated when a local gang leader is murdered. Set in a Ho...

The word 'myth' refers to a society's collective stories, often involving Gods and the heroes that have offended them and Bad Dad Peter Andre has us thinking all about them and their cinematic representations and influences this week, as we kick things off with the Top 5 Mythical Characters. THE NORTHMAN is the second Robert Eggers film we've reviewed in recent months, after the deranged and often unpleasant THE LIGHTHOUSE and sees the director taking on the Hamlet origin story in what I hope is...

Based on a 1998 Frank Miller comic book which in turn was inspired by the 1962 Rudolph Maté sword and sandals epic THE 300 SPARTANS, 300 (2006) is Zack Snyder's very loose retelling of the events of the Battle of Thermopylae taking place circa 480 BC and I don't really think I can reasonably cram 1 more number into this sentence before it loses any semblance of aardvark. Gerard Butler plays Leonidas, master chocolatier and King of the Spartans, the most feared and formidable of all forces in anc...

As my work involves sitting at a computer for long stretches and watching films requires even more screen time, what I don't really need in my life is yet another sedentary activity which is a shame because I really enjoy playing video games. This week we celebrate entertainments biggest industry, though you wouldn't know it given how little attention is devoted to video gaming in popular media. And you wouldn't really know it when you listen to us either as we try to avoid any computer game ref...

The late 90's saw a run of films which deconstructed the idea that reality was an illusion; THE TRUMAN SHOW, THE MATRIX, DARK CITY all explored this theme in some way but David Fincher's 1997 THE GAME is the most paranoid of all of them. Michael Douglas is superb as affluent control freak Nicholas van Orton who finds himself involved in a conspiracy when brother Conrad gives him a gift certificate for the blandly-named Consumer Recreation Services promising a "profound life experience". Some typ...

Would it be fair to describe us as Podcast Royalty? No, probably not. But that didn't stop us trawling our way through the top 5 topic of Kings and Queens. A particular film franchise making its possible top 5 debut this week. Our main feature this week was overshadowed by some Oscar night slap shenanigans. King Richard was Will Smith's ticket to gold statue glory. But have you actually seen the movie? If I recall Mr Smith was somewhat of a certainty for the Oscar nod. We cast our vote on the mo...

SWINGERS was released in 1996 and Sidey in particular has loved it ever since. Dan joined in the conversation as the guys try to pin down exactly why this film is such a hit with the fellas. Is it the eminently quotable dialogue, the brilliant soundtrack or the gents style? Possibly all of those things. This movie launched the careers of Jon Favreau, Vince Vaughn and Doug Liman. Not to give too much away, but we love this movie!

Sidey was very keen to watch C'mon C'mon, so the 2021 MIKE MILLS family drama was our main feature this week. Did it live up to Sidey's expectation? You'll have to listen in to find out!

Having frittered away this weeks budget on extravagances like cheese and pickled chillies, the Dads were forced to choose a movie available to them at no extra costs. Step forward TRANSPORTER 3 starring the very excellent Jason Statham. A strange choice by Sidey, as he hadn't seen either Le Transporteur 1 or 2! Mr Statham plays Frank Martin, a man whose name confused your hosts a lot more than it should have. Frank is the Transporter in question. A courier of dubious goods, who has a code, but w...

This week sees us celebrating the work of Oscar-winning-action-B-movie-mega-actor Nic Cage by completely avoiding talking about his films when we discuss the Top 5 Cages. Dan's lost his notes, Sidey's lost his mind and no one is 100% sure exactly what a "cage" is so it could be an interesting discussion. In THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT Nic Cage plays Nick Cage, tormented by visions of his younger more successful self after losing out on his dream role as a Boston tough guy in director...

6 years after an assassination attempt goes horribly wrong, resulting in the death of his young son, FBI Agent Sean Archer (John Travolta) finally captures and subdues international terrorist Castor Troy (Nic Cage) however with time running out to defuse a bomb that will destroy the entire city of Los Angeles, Archer decides to undergo experimental face transplant surgery in order to pose as his nemesis and infiltrate a secret underwater prison where he can meet Troy's brother Pollox, the only ...

One of the best things about podcasting apart from the fun of the actual recording, the really cool people we’ve been able to meet as a result of doing this, the chance we’ve had to indulge our passions, the unity and commitment it takes from 5 different people to spaff this nonsense out into the ether each week and the dedication to refinement of a craft even one as insignificant as this is the fact that you can in some small way reduce your self-worth to a number if you like, the number of dow...

This week's notes were written before all the technical flummoxing that occurred, scuppering our collaboration. They are however too good to delete so please enjoy, whilst pretending there's finally someone interesting on this show to listen to! __________________________________________________________________ Charlie Bingham, host of the Mountain Conversations podcast and archaeologist with a specialist interest in the common ancestor between humans, chimps and bonobos may well see her work co...

Just three Bad Dads this week and since that's three for the price of none, only you can judge whether that represents value for money. With all of us having equine obsessed daughters it seems suprising that it has taken us this long to discuss the Top 5 Horses, especially as reviewing our back catalog demonstrates that we've held a stable interest in them. We’ve reviewed a couple of Steven Soderbergh movies on the pod already – MAGIC MIKE, BEHIND THE CANDELABRA - but after the latter's release ...

Of course, it seems obvious now to reimagine the iconic video game characters for 1993's SUPER MARIO BROS. movie as being captives in an alternate dimension steampunk police state where people evolved from dinosaurs, which has been infected by a sentient testicle fungus and opponents of the fascist regime are de-evolved into barely conscious lumbering abominations but it took the largely untried husband and wife team Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel, writers for MAX HEADROOM, to bring this creati...

It's never easy writing the show notes when you weren't present for the podcast itself and consequently don't have the overall tone of the discussion to guide you. For instance, the guys talked about the Top 5 Hacking or Computers Scenes, but was any of it interesting? Almost certainly not. And what will special guest Rupert have to say about it all? And who is Rupert anyway? THE HISTORY OF FUTURE FOLK (2012) has sat unwatched in my Netflix queue since I first joined the service, so I was deligh...

In the spirit of the movie we are reviewing I thought it would be humorous to make the show notes excessively long so that it would take you three hours to read them but it turns out that a) no one reads the show notes anyway and b) that would take me an extremely long time so instead you can recreate that experience by simply looping over these next sections a few thousand times. Frank Darabont had already directed the Stephen King adaptation THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, initially a box office dis...

FALLING DOWN (1993) begins innocuously enough when an unnamed white male in his 50's abandons his car in the blazing heat of downtown Los Angeles traffic with the simple and relatable enough desire to get home to his family. Meanwhile Martin Prendergast (Robert Duvall) is having a sh*tty last day on the job, stuck in that same congestion and heading towards a retirement he doesn't want from a police force that doesn't respect him, in order to become a carer for his unstable wife. As reports emer...

We have been subjecting ourselves to THE PENTAVERATE for reasons it is hard to explain so when Johnny Utah responded to our call for suggestions of movies that listeners think are worth revisiting, Mike Myers 1993 follow up to the pop culture smash hit WAYNE'S WORLD seemed like a good fit with our viewing trends. It was a surprise to me though that this week’s movie, SO I MARRIED AN AXE MURDERER, would reference the recent Netflix's series central conceit, proving the Canadian has had the idea i...

This weeks show was masterminded by Bad Dad Sidey who would have pleased the many protective headgear enthusiasts in our audience by nominating the Top 5 Helmets for us to discuss. Will we manage to talk about this subject without a lot of puerility and giggling? I wouldn't have thought so. THE LIGHTHOUSE (2019) was director Robert Egger's sophomore effort after debut THE VVITCH polarised the horror community with its emphasis on tone and atmosphere at the expense of shocks and sees Willem Dafoe...

Sidey enthusiastically nominated the 2010 cult favourite, SCOTT PILGRIM Vs THE WORLD. This could possibly be the most Edgar Wright movie of all the Edgar Wright movies. I'm not entirely sure what that means, but something to do with sharp, quick editing, great soundtrack and fantastic casting. Whilst we know at least one of the Dads loves this movie, the movie was not a global smash. This one sadly lost out at the box office, and the audience's lukewarm response to the movie was reflected in the...