Be Reel

Alan Moore is inarguably among the best regarded comic writers of all time, but he’s also a mystery wrapped in an enigma. This week, Chance and Noah break down three comic-to-film adaptations in search of the man behind "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," "V for Vendetta" and "Watchmen." The guys are joined by Jake Dilley (24:10) of St. Louis' Comic HQ store to give a bit of context on Alan Moore and how comic enthusiasts view these adaptations. Then, GQ’s Scott Meslow (48:35) returns to Be Reel to discuss the American political allegory on display in the otherwise very British "V for Vendetta." We may not be super heroes by the traditional standards, but strap on your old utility belt and try to be very, verily vigilant. The game is on!

Because there aren't enough opinions out there about Ryan Coogler's "Black Panther," broken white boys Chance and Noah unpack the political read and narrative construction of this Marvel blockbuster. Is Wakanda a utopia or an acknowledgement of violence's place in society? Is globalism a responsibility or a danger for a tech- and resource-rich country? Unclear! But what is clear is that both guys have a real affection for Michael B. Jordan. Noah can't get over the ancestral plane, and Chance's only point of CGI reference is the Star Wars prequels.

Let the flags wave, the trumpets sound, and the Pink Eye medication take effect quickly! Chance and Noah are here to represent their podcast at the Winter Olympics of movies past. After some initial thoughts on the 2018 games, your hosts get into Miracle (2004), Cool Runnings (1993), and Eddie The Eagle (2016). They're all movies inspired by true underdog stories with the sap, grandstanding, and training montages you'd expect when it's ... [pauses for effect] ... inside what counts. From hockey to bobsledding to ski jumping, we break down all the sports movie cliches and discuss how you can still make an enjoyable film out of an inspirational formula and some weird, weird sports.

It takes two to tango, and Chance and Noah try not to step on each other’s feet in this week’s episode of Be Reel. Your hosts unpack the romances, trials and tropes of dance movie classics and upstarts alike with “Dirty Dancing,” “Save the Last Dance” and “Step Up,” questioning why these movies were made, if boppin’ around in your seat is a litmus test for quality, and why your mom (plus one of your hosts) is obsessed with Patrick Swayze. Meryl Cates, who's written about dance for The New Yorker and works as a publicist for The Met, edifies us on the legacy of dance films and how realistic and talented these actors are as big screen dancers. And while the guys don’t agree on much this week, nobody puts Be Reel in the ... well, you get it.

What better way to deconstruct the method to Nicolas Cage's apparent madness than by looking at telling moments in which he played dads ... bad dads! In the newly released "Mom and Dad," Cage loses his cool and endeavors to murder his children (5:05). Plus, film critic Andy Crump joins our show to discuss why this new VOD horror outing contains the best Cage freakout in a decade (23:20). In "Matchstick Men," OCD Cage attempts to connect with his estranged daughter by teaching her how to be a con lady (42:25). And speaking of cons, Cage is desperate (sort of) to get back to a daughter he’s never met in the '90s classic "Con Air" (57:00). Prepare yourself for bad impersonations, outrageous claims, and conflicting opinions on a one-of-a-kind film career in this all-Cage episode!

Chance and Noah do a podcast, and you're going to hear us ROAR! On this week's episode, we take on pop musicians by unpacking their self-produced documentaries. In Demi Lovato's "Simply Complicated," the guys are torn about objectivity and ulterior motives. In Justin Bieber's "Never Say Never," Chance and Noah spar over whether Bieber is a talented performer or a symptom of parasitic celebrity culture. Finally, in Katy Perry's "Part of Me," Chance would maybe grab a beer with this surprising acolyte of Alanis Morissette, while Noah can't get over how terrible a husband Russell Brand was. If this genre isn't your cup of tea, sorry not sorry.

Once every five (or so) years, Academy Award-winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis takes to the screen to embody a powerful masculine figure. On the heels of his announcement that this month's "Phantom Thread" will be his final picture, Chance and Noah look back at career touchstones of an actor with the chiseled features of piece of coinage. From this year's Reynolds Woodcock to Bill "The Butcher" Cutting ("Gangs of New York") to Nathaniel "Hawkeye" Poe ("The Last of the Mohicans"), Day-Lewis always swings for the fences. But how will be his legacy be remembered, and how watchable are these prestige pictures? Dust off your tunic and sharpen your knives: It's the DDL pod!

You know how when you have 10 days off work you basically just start devouring movies? Press play to hear your hosts dig into "Star Wars: The Last Jedi," "Call Me By Your Name," "I, Tonya," and "Bright." From *perhaps* the best Star Wars ever made to the worst thing Netflix ever spent 90 million dollars on, happy new year, friends.

Our year-end episode has arrived, friends, and here's what's on the agenda: 2:40 - Noah took himself to "Blade Runner 2049," so we catch up on Denis Villeneuve's towering dystopian sequel. 18:25 - We circle back to review "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri," a movie in which Frances McDormand tries to burn down the whole world with her eyes. 33:20 - Your hosts begin to wrap up 2017, each counting down their five favorite characters from the year in film, including entries from Get Out, Call Me By Your Name, and The Disaster Artist. 46:05 - Noah fashions a litany of 2017 lists to remind us what movies we may have missed this year and what movies just plain missed us. Happy holidays, all!

If you've seen "The Room," you know it transcends the filmic category of "so bad it's good." There's a sense of tragedy, ambition, and madness all bubbling somewhere in that 2003 cult phenomenon, a phenomenon celebrated and investigated by James Franco's "The Disaster Artist." This week, with the help of film critic and Mousterpiece Cinema host Josh Spiegel, we dig into three films about movie directors producing real trash, on shoestring budgets and dragging along bands of conspirators. We watched "The Disaster Artist", "Ed Wood," and "Bowfinger" to examine the psyches of directors who maybe should have called "cut" on the whole project.

Every Thanksgiving, your strangely committed hosts watch six movies for something they call The MegaPod. For the third iteration, we drafted movies from franchises we thought we might otherwise not get to in the course of our normal episode selections. As always, our families just loved that we had to watch 12 hours of movies over the weekend. Check out the choices and timestamps below. 6:40 - "Jaws: The Revenge" - Positing that there's a psychological bond between a grieving widow and a shark, and streaming on Netflix. 22:30 - "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" - Thriving on the unintentional hilarity of those uber-detailed turtle suits, and streaming on Hulu. 32:50 - "Scream 2" - Losing itself in a tidal wave of self-awareness and blood, and streaming on HBO. 44:20 - "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" - Grappling with your 13-year-old sense of humor, and streaming on HBO. 59:50 - "Ocean's 12" - Watching powerlessly as those beautiful thieves hatch a plan so hair-brained it notoriously ruins the movie,

Our annual MegaPod approaches! Oh, you don't know what that is? Don't sweat it. It just means we watch six movies instead of three. This year we've selected six candidates from whatever film franchises we want, draft-style. They're all free on streaming services, so listen here for our surprise picks, the ensuing cheers and guffaws, watch along with us, and get ready for the full episode to drop after the long weekend!

On this new mini-episode, Noah and Chance discuss "Lady Bird," the witty and affecting new film portrait of a teenage girl's last lap around Catholic high school in 2002 Sacramento. The directorial debut from Greta Gerwig has garnered near-universal acclaim, and we add our voices to that choir, praising the film's accessible star performance and appreciating how Sacramento makes both for a great anywhere and a hyper-specific somewhere. Visit bereelpodcast.com for some writing and all our episodes.

When friend groups reunite in country houses, this week's genre teaches us that old songs, old wounds, and binge drinking aren't far behind. Having just hung out in the Poconos two weeks ago (and gone 2 outta 3 from that list), we decided to watch three movies that all owe something to "The Big Chill" and the experience of getting out of town with old buds. We watched "Peter's Friends" (1992) and its parade of English talent before they were Dr. House and Elinor Dashwood, "Hot Tub Time Machine" (2010) and its cauldron of camp, and "Joshy" (2016) with its bizarre choice to let improv comedians go wild amid tragedy.

2003's "The Recruit" is about a CIA recruiter played by Al Pacino recruiting a CIA recruit played by Colin Farrell. But can a CIA recruiter played by Al Pacino be trusted? 2017's Fall Classic celebration was, in some small part, about Noah and Chance recruiting a dozen other people to watch a middling action-thriller instead of enjoying the natural beauty of the Poconos. Could the hosts of Be Reel be trusted? We answer these questions and more in our first-ever episode to feature 10+ guests and to be partially recorded in backwoods Pennsylvania.

In our Halloween episode, we read the tea leaves of three movies about crews of witches supporting each other, fighting demonic men, and (in one case) sucking the lifeblood from small children. And while "Practical Magic," "Hocus Pocus" and "The Witches of Eastwick" might appear to cry out for a #CovenGoals celebration of witchy power, these movies are a pretty wild broom-ride of giant performances, confounding gender politics, and having no idea what magic is. This week, we're thrilled to be joined by Syfy Wire writer Heather Mason to discuss Sandra Bullock's rom-com plot stuck in the middle of “Practical Magic” and whether “Hocus Pocus” is suitable for kids. Read Heather's piece on "Practical Magic" here: http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/33-thoughts-i-had-while-watching-practical-magic

Once Batman, now Birdman, Michael Keaton either became world famous by accident, and then went missing on purpose, or the other way around. The 68-year-old actor’s circuitous career is marked by distinct eras — from zany ‘80s comedies, to block-busting New Hollywood fare, to 15 pretty lean years, to a comeback in 2014. On this week’s show, we watched three films where Keaton plays his favorite concerto — losing his mind on camera. It’s “Birdman” (2014), “Beetlejuice” (1988) and “Mr. Mom” (1983). Joining in to make us smarter are two guests: Keaton fanatic and The Kickback frontman Billy Yost and film historian Alison Macor, who just released a biography of the screenwriter of both “Beetlejuice” and “Batman.” For your hosts' part, an argument ensues. Is Michael Keaton’s weirdness a net positive for his movies?

The air is chilling, the leaves are changing, and, boy, do these back-to-school films love to show us just that. On this week’s podcast, we discuss three films shaped around a new year at boarding school. Whether at Hogwarts in 2004 or Ivy League feeder academies in 1959, these boarding school movies all hinge on how an outsider fits into an environment steeped in WASP-ness, wealth, and tradition. English teacher and returning friend-of-the-pod Brent Rivers sits in with us to discuss how “Dead Poets Society,” “School Ties,” and “Harry Potter And The Prisoner of Azkaban” all propagate certain myths about inspiring teachers. Visit bereelpodcast.com for all past episodes and some additional writing.

In this week's mini-episode, Noah and Chance review and rate the new, smash-hit adaptation of Stephen King's "It." While Noah is almost finished with King's dictionary-sized 1986 novel, Chance came completely cold to this story about an evil force terrorizing small-town kids in the form of a killer clown.  While Noah fills Chance in on the issues director Andrés Muschietti's adaptation doesn't touch from the original novel, your hosts also grapple with how to judge horror movies with their rating system. Is it pleasurable to watch Pennywise the Dancing Clown torment the adolescent outcasts who call themselves The Losers' Club? Let's dive on in; you'll float too.

On a new Be Reel, we enter the Matrix trilogy, which is streaming in its entirety on Netflix. The franchise, of course, begins with one of the most iconic action films of modern times, and we bring in IGN's Sean Finnegan to discuss how and why "The Matrix" is still relevant and surprising 18 years after its release. Then, it's on to the nearly five hours of sequels: "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions." The words "stupid" and "nearly ruins" are tossed about. And in its own, unintentional way, this franchise has caused us to rethink our choices as human beings. Would we have taken the blue pill on this whole Be Reel category?