Load Bearing Beams

In this very special episode of the show, Laci and Matt team up to take a look at a movie that holds a special place in both their hearts: Ri¢hie Ri¢h (1994). They learn that Macaulay Culkin was depressed during the making of the film and that it sent him into retirement, and that the film has spawned a robust fan theory community on Reddit. They share of their favorite theories and much more in this gold nugget of an ep.

Hello, friends. To honor the mothers of the world this weekend, we're covering a movie about the best mothers in the animal kingdom: crows. In addition to discussing The Crow (1994) and the tragic death of Brandon Lee, Laci dives into her mysterious past as a goth kid. Plus a detailed breakdown of the career of the professional wrestler Sting as well as the fall of the Roman Empire. All of that and a discussion of movies Laci and Matt have pretended to like to seem cool. (Sorry about the spotty audio in some of this. It's not a giant deal, but there's some weird echo-y stuff.)

Matt reached far back into his past to grab this VHS classic. He couldn't wait to see Laci's reaction to the second live-action Turtles film. It's pure distilled nineties action, dude! The result: Divorce? Hope it was worth it.

Hop in a time machine folks, and do the Bartman with us all the way back to the early 1990s, a time when Steve Martin could semi-convincingly play a normal family man just trying to make it in this crazy world on a 9-figure annual salary. Laci and Matt examine both Father of the Bride (1991) and Father of the Bride Part 2 (1995), plus share the heart-warming story of their own engagement and matrimony. PS: Thanks to Wade Hymel for re-doing our theme song! 

For the sixth or seventh time, Load Bearing Beams returns after a lengthy hiatus. For real this time! Laci and Matt discuss the 2013 Brad Pitt zombie movie World War Z and Matt's associated love of the apocalypse. Plus an analysis of what the 2011 film Contagion gets right and wrong about pandemics, and much more.

Laci and Matt end their hiatus and return to the podcast by first explaining their family news that partially explains the long absence. Then, they go into all three of Pixar's Cars movies in excruciating detail. Fiery arguments ensue. For example: Both agree that Doc Hudson (Paul Newman) is a jerk, but they disagree about why. Matt defends the much-maligned Cars 2 and the character of Mater (Larry the Cable Guy), while Laci makes her case for Cars 3 as the best of the series. They've seen these movies way more than you have.  Time stamps: Cars - 14:55 Cars 2 - 38:00 Cars 3 - 44:50 Do you want us to talk about YOUR movie? Leave a review of our podcast on iTunes, and in your review give us the name of your load-bearing beam and why it's so important to you.   Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com   Twitter: @LoadBearingPod YouTube: LoadBearingBeams

TGIF, right? Working hard or hardly working? On an all-new episode of the podcast, in an episode Matt calls "Mystic Stirrer" and Laci calls "The Tale of Two Bacons," the Splendid Spouses discuss Stir Of Echoes, the movie from 1999 about a creepy kid who sees ghosts that isn't The Sixth Sense. Then, it's more hardscrabble workin' folk in Clint Eastwood's Mystic River (2003).    Time stamps: Matt got hearing aids - 0:00 Stir of Echos - 10:35 Mystic River - 27:00   Do you want us to talk about YOUR movie? Leave a review of our podcast on iTunes, and in your review give us the name of your load-bearing beam and why it's so important to you.   Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com   Twitter: @LoadBearingPod YouTube: LoadBearingBeams

We may all go a little mad sometimes, but one thing that won't drive you PSYCHO is listening to this podcast about Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 shock-tastic thrills-a-minute slasher joint. Happy Halloween.    Time stamps: Psycho: 12:00 Best horror movie decades: 36:20   Do you want us to talk about YOUR movie? Leave a review of our podcast on iTunes, and in your review give us the name of your load-bearing beam and why it's so important to you.   Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com   Twitter: @LoadBearingPod YouTube: LoadBearingBeams

In an extra-scary episode of the show, Laci "R.I.P." Roth and Matt CHOKES talk about the classic Disney Halloween film Hocus Pocus (1993). But wait... classic? This pile of garbage?    Also, hear our abbreviated thoughts on What's Eating Gilbert Grape in lieu of an actual episode on the film, and then we review Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House.    Time stamps: Hocus Pocus: 01:29 What's Eating Gilbert Grape?: 37:50 The Haunting of Hill House:  41:38    Do you want us to talk about YOUR movie? Leave a review of our podcast on iTunes, and in your review give us the name of your load-bearing beam and why it's so important to you.   Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com   Twitter: @LoadBearingPod YouTube: LoadBearingBeams

When Matt was in college, he took a film class where the professor showed Danny DeVito's The War Of The Roses (1989), a movie in which an affluent couple go through a bitter divorce. At the end of the movie the professor asked who in the class sided with Michael Douglas, and who sided with Kathleen Turner. The divide split evenly on gender lines—the women sided with Turner, the men with Douglas. So what now does a man/woman married couple think of this movie? Are they destined to divide like the college students, and head for a War of their own?  Also: They discuss the hype for A Star Is Born and predict how much they'll like it.  Do you want us to talk about YOUR movie? Leave a review of our podcast on iTunes, and in your review give us the name of your load-bearing beam and why it's so important to you. Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com Twitter: @LoadBearingPod YouTube: LoadBearingBeams

It's a Steven Spielberg double-header as Laci and Matt pit their cherished, beloved load-bearing beams against one another.  First up: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) whose title, we all know, refers to a physical interaction with an alien. We all know this.  Then it's The Color Purple (1985), whose title, as we all know, refers to naturally occurring purple. We all know this.  Time stamps: Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (9:43) The Color Purple (33:16)  Do you want us to talk about YOUR movie? Leave a review of our podcast on iTunes, and in your review give us the name of your load-bearing beam and why it's so important to you. Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com Twitter: @LoadBearingPod YouTube: LoadBearingBeams

Get shibby with us as we discuss Dude, Where's My Car? (2000) and all its fascinating and devastating implications. What can the continuum transponder tell us about the effects of quantitative easing? How could Jesse and Chester have used Bayesian probability theory to determine where to first look for their car? And wouldn't this movie be better if these two nice fellas were just boyfriends the whole time? Come on, guys.  Do you want us to talk about YOUR movie? Leave a review of our podcast on iTunes, and in your review give us the name of your load-bearing beam and why it's so important to you. Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com Twitter: @LoadBearingPod YouTube: LoadBearingBeams

Synecdoche, New York is a life-affirming romp about how gosh-darn fun it is to make gorgeous works of art! (Maybe we misread it.) Topics covered include mourning Philip Seymour Hoffman, traveling for work, how buying a house is basically buying a burning building that will smell, whether a nice person can be a great artist, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and constructing your own reality on social media. Time stamps: Synecdoche, New York: 03:00 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: 36:55 Do you want us to talk about YOUR movie? Leave a review of our podcast on iTunes, and in your review give us the name of your load-bearing beam and why it's so important to you. Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com Twitter: @LoadBearingPod YouTube: LoadBearingBeams    

After a month away, Load Bearing Beams returns to talk 'hood... parenthood, that is! Ron Howard's 1989 feature warmed audiences' hearts everywhere, but how does it hold up today? Then Laci and Matt give real talk about child rearing, pregnancy, and the perpetual exhaustion that comes with being a parent, as well as the movies and TV shows that accurately show all of this. Finally, they discuss Terms Of Endearment, James L. Brooks's 1983 Oscar-winning classic about mothers, daughters, and children of all ages. Laci and Matt agree that it executes everything Parenthood is going for about 10,000 times better.    Do you want us to talk about YOUR movie? Leave a review of our podcast on iTunes, and in your review give us the name of your load-bearing beam and why it's so important to you. Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com Twitter: @LoadBearingPod YouTube: LoadBearingBeams   Time stamps: Parenthood: 10:22 Movies about parenting and pregnancy: 39:27 Terms Of Endearment: 57:07

Brother Of The Show Elliott Stokes hops aboard to discuss all three of Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather films.  Do you want us to talk about YOUR movie? Leave a review of our podcast on iTunes, and in your review give us the name of your load-bearing beam and why it's so important to you. Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com Twitter: @LoadBearingPod YouTube: LoadBearingBeams

Matt and Laci watched Little Nicky (2000) and Slums Of Beverly Hills (1998) two weeks ago and barely remember them. Still, they bravely trudge ahead and discuss their feelings on revisiting the two films after more than ten years.  PLUS: Thoughts on Solo: A Star Wars Story, more debate about the merits of the Foo Fighters, and an examination of when phone calls became the worst. Time stamps: Little Nicky (15:48) Slums Of Beverly Hills (29:30)  Do you want us to talk about YOUR movie? Leave a review of our podcast on iTunes, and in your review give us the name of your load-bearing beam and why it's so important to you. Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com Twitter: @LoadBearingPod YouTube: LoadBearingBeams

Due to a family emergency, Laci and Matt weren't able to record a new episode this week, so instead we present seventeen short clips from the podcast that are just plum terrific. They are: "John Williams Loves a Buffet" (from Hook) "Is Jim Carrey Funny?" (from The Grinch) "Shouldn't Young Doc Brown Recognize His Future Self?" (from Back to the Future Part II) "Farting Your Dinner" (from Nacho Libre) "Matt hates The Goonies" (from The Goonies) "We're not impressed with Vada's poem at the end of My Girl" (from My Girl) "Matt was miserable on his senior trip to Disney World" (from Welcome to the Dollhouse) "We hate crooners!" (from The Grinch) "What is fliffity floo?" (from Beetlejuice) "Did Rocky drink raw eggs just to save time?" (from Rocky) "The Lost Boys is actually about heroin addiction" (from The Lost Boys) "Laci loves vampires" (from Interview With the Vampire) "Laci thinks Matt lies about liking old movies" (from Duck Soup) "Remember record stores?" (from Empire Records) "Why are people scared of clown

We lost most of this episode, but we salvaged a debate about whether or not the Foo Fighters are good and included a 20-minute bonus review of Avengers: Infinity War and Matt's thoughts on the weirdness of how voice-over narration is used in the 1996 film Matilda.   Time stamps: Foo Fighters [09:20] Avengers: Infinity War [14:55]   Do you want us to talk about YOUR movie? Leave a review of our podcast on iTunes, and in your review give us the name of your load-bearing beam and why it's so important to you. Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com Twitter: @LoadBearingPod YouTube: LoadBearingBeams  

Friend Of The Show Caleb Hogan joins the show live in studio to discuss his Listener Choice (because he's a Listener as well!) movie: 2006's Nacho Libre. Jack Black plays Ignacio, a friar in rural southwestern Mexico who longs to be a luchador. But that makes this movie sound much more conventional than what it is, because, really, it's just Napoleon Dynamite, but in Mexico instead of Idaho, and with a monastery instead of a high school, and with lucha wrestling instead of silly dancing.  Is Nacho merely a cucumber to deliver meme-worthy quotes like GET THAT CORN OUT OF MY FACE! that people who don't get just don't get? Or is something else going on here? Do you want us to talk about YOUR movie? Leave a review of our podcast on iTunes, and in your review give us the name of your load-bearing beam and why it's so important to you. Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com Twitter: @LoadBearingPod YouTube: LoadBearingBeams

In an episode Laci calls "A City Of Their Own" and Matt calls "A Light Of Their Cities," the Dangerous Dyad discuss 1992's baseball picture A League Of Their Own and 1931's alienation picture City Lights. A League Of Their Own starts right off with the annoying wrap-around modern story that then flashes back to the action you bought your ticket for. Why do so many movies do this? Does League overcome this tiresome trope?  Then, City Lights is for many people a gateway drug into silent films in general and silent comedy in particular. It's Charlie Chaplin's tale of an outcast, shunned by society, finding love and connection in some surprising places. Laughter, and a few tears, ensue! Or do they?? What did Laci think watching her very first silent film?  Time stamps: A League Of Their Own: 08:00 City Lights: 31:32 Do you want us to talk about YOUR movie? Leave a review of our podcast on iTunes, and in your review give us the name of your load-bearing beam and why it's so important to you. Website: www.loadbear