Load Bearing Beams

In 2001, Corky Romano rode a wave of movie vehicles led by Saturday Night Live alumni whose titles were the first and last names of their fictional protagonists. The movie was not a success. It derailed Chris Kattan's career. It has a 6% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the most poorly reviewed movie covered on the podcast.  But is it actually that bad? Could the critics have been correct? Or is there something more to this movie? Is it, perhaps, what Laci calls a cucumber?  Listen and find out. ALSO: We apologize for the audio quality, which is 12% worse than it normally is. 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, "Ace Soup" and Matt calls, "A Detective, Duck!" the Cromulent Couple once again wade into the uncertain world of comedy. Comedy is hard to discuss. You either find something funny or you don't.  Case in point: Duck Soup (1933), an 85-year-old movie that Laci, having never before seen a Marx Brothers movie, found utterly hilarious. And case in counter-point: Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994), a movie heretofore unseen by Matt that is comparably new, yet seems incredibly dated.  Who is the best Marx? Is Jim Carrey funny? If Jim Carrey had brothers who made movies with him, would he be better? We answer these burning questions once and for all.   Time stamps: Duck Soup: 08:02 Ace Ventura: Pet Detective: 22:15   Want us to talk about YOUR load-bearing beam movie on a Listener's Choice(TM) special? Leave us a review on iTunes and in your review include the name of the movie and why it means so much to you. Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com Twitter: @LoadBearingPod YouTube: LoadBearingBeam

Friday (1995) is a slice-of-life comedy from the mid-nineties that has spawned a million quotes and memes repeated ad infinitum. It's one of those movies that's hard to appreciate afresh. But Matt had never seen it, and Laci hadn't seen it in a long time, so at a listener's behest, they watched and talk about. To make a long story short: It's really funny, and actually really deep. We recommend this oral history of Friday from Complex.  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

Guys: things used to be weird. In 1996, Beavis & Butt-Head Do America earned $61 million at the box office. Matt loved it as a teenager, and still loves it as an adult. But it leads to perhaps the biggest divide Laci and Matt have ever had on this podcast, as she is physically repulsed by it. What exactly is going on here?  Then, in The Pick-Up Artist (1987), a film helmed by accused serial sexual predator James Toback, Robert Downey, Jr. is a sexual predator. But he's charming! So we don't know what to think. We get into our feelings about this baffling film. Time stamps: Beavis & Butt-Head Do America: (03:40) The Pick-Up Artist: (17:40) Want us to talk about YOUR load-bearing beam movie on a Listener's Choice(TM) special? Leave us a review on iTunes and in your review include the name of the movie and why it means so much to you. Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com Twitter: @LoadBearingPod YouTube: LoadBearingBeams

Listener Polliwogwannabe suggested Luc Besson's 1994 classic Léon: The Professional, a film Laci mistook for a kids movie about a cartoon mouse. Turns out she had actually seen it before, because it fits right into her mid-nineties canon of thrillers featuring antiheroes in dark clothing who like to talk about pop singers. Matt had never seen it. WHAT DID WE THINK? Only one way to find out: By reading this sentence—we loved it! But you should still listen. Time stamp: Léon: The Professional (06:25) Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com Twitter: @LoadBearingPod Want us to talk about your movie? Leave us a review on iTunes and include your Listener's Choice suggestion, as well as a sentence or two about what the movie means to you.

In an episode Laci calls "The Black Bird Interviews" and that Matt calls "Vampires Of Malta," the Peerless Pair discuss 1994's vampire/journalism film Interview With the Vampire and 1941's detective/raptor movie The Maltese Falcon. Topics covered include Tom Cruise's career, Kirsten Dunst vs. Natalie Portman, the Twilight Saga, and Humphrey Bogart's mouthpiece.  Time stamps: Interview With the Vampire: 06:39 The Maltese Falcon: 36:26   Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com Twitter: @LoadBearingPod

A Listener joins us to talk about his Choice! Friend Of The Show Wade Hymel makes his triumphant return to LBB to discuss 2007's The Bucket List, a movie about death and the meaning of life. And that's what this episode is—a mediation on mortality, self-actualization, and the strange arc of human life, from infancy to mature adult to immature elderly person. Wade is technically a listener, so this fits into the whole scheme of Load Bearing Beams. Not gonna lie: This episode goes to some weird places. Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com Twitter: @LoadBearingPod

In an episode Laci calls "Rocky House" but that Matt calls "Rockin' At the Dollhouse," Laci and Matt discuss the feel-good movie of all time, Rocky (1976) and the feel-bad movie of all time, Welcome To the Dollhouse (1996). What follows is weirdly intense discussion about mortality, bullying, and happiness. Also: Matt's senior class trip to Disney World sucked. Time stamps: Rocky: 06:08 Welcome To the Dollhouse: 22:37   Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com   Twitter: @LoadBearingPod

In an episode Laci calls "Ever Men" but that Matt calls "X1: X-Men Ever After," the pair discuss Ever After (1998) and X-Men (2000), two movies that, to everyone's surprise, are both pure delights!  Ever After, Drew Barrymore deploys a most unconvincing British accent to play the French commoner Danielle de Barbarac who pulls off a most sinister rouse and pretends to be the Comtesse de Lancret! Love ensues. Good movie. In X-Men, Hugh Jackman/Jack Hughman finds himself caught up in a war between Magneto, that most dastardly of villains who can create magnetic fields, and Professor X, who can read people's minds unless they put on a helmet. Slashing ensues. Good movie. Time stamps: Ever After: 03:54 X-Men: 20:17   Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com Twitter: @LoadBearingPod

Jumanji Fever is sweeping America—nay, the world—and Load Bearing Beams catches the fever by viewing Welcome To the Jungle's predecessor, 1995's much more somber, pensive, and scaled-down film, Jumanji. A listener selected this movie for the show, as neither Laci nor Matt was a big fan of it growing up. But this movie is much beloved by millions of people, so the show sets out to figure out why. It's a movie in which Robin Williams doesn't get to Robin Williams, and the plot revolves largely around dead and emotionally unavailable parents... we have a winner? Also: Laci has some feelings about Toodles, the levitating, tool-dispensing clock from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse in the newest edition of "Mickey's Clubhouse Clubhouse."    Time stamps: Mickey's Clubhouse Clubhouse: 03:15 Jumanji: 10:07   Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com   Twitter: @LoadBearingPod  

In an episode Laci calls "The Future Of the Empire" and Matt calls "Recording the Future," Load Bearing Beams examines Back To the Future, Part II (1989) and Empire Records (1995). One a huge hit, the other a giant flop with a long afterlife on home video, and both a large source of internet chatter and memes. Back To the Future, Part II was one of the first mainstream American movies to explore the implications and potential paradoxes of time travel. How does its depiction of time travel and the future world of 2015 hold up in 2018? And Empire Records is the tale of a magical kingdom where a record store in the downtown of a small city somehow sells enough CDs and cassettes to pay a huge staff of misfits and transact $9,000 in cash in a single day! Even in 1995, could this possibly have been realistic?  Time stamps: Back To the Future, Part II: 02:30 Empire Records: 31:02   Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com   Twitter: @LoadBearingPod

It's a super-sized Listener's Choice episode in which we cover THREE MOVIES! That's right, we watched all three Austin Powers films at the suggestion of a listener, and we dig deep into all three on this podcast.  First up, it's Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), a low-budget movie with an unlikely premise that was a moderate hit and somehow spawned an immensely popular and profitable franchise thanks to impressions that are easy to do and a litany of quotable memes. But how is it as a movie?  Then, it's Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) or, as it's known in Singapore, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shioked Me (which means, "Austin Powers: The spy who made me feel good."). We can't believe there was ever a world without Mini-Me! And finally, we come to Austin Powers In Goldmember (2002), co-starring Beyoncé Knowles of the religious pop song group Destiny's Child and Michael Caine of Jaws: The Revenge. Laci watched this movie 50 times as a teenager. What does she think of it now?? Time

Back before Johnny Depp sucked, he starred in a movie called Blow (2001), the story of a mediocre, uninteresting drug dealer who can do no wrong... until he can do no right! Does this film pack the emotional punch for adult Laci that it did for teen Laci?  Then, LBB examines Zack Snyder's Watchmen (2009), a bloated, confused, utterly fascinating adaptation of the classic graphic novel. Laci and Matt debate whether Rorshach is a flawed but admirable hero, or an overgrown male junior high school student who scrawls Nietzsche quotes in his notebook. Matt loved this movie so much that it inspired him to read a comic book for the first (and still only!) time in his life. Could this movie possibly hold up?    Time stamps: Blow: 03:32 Watchmen: 21:05   Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com   Twitter: @LoadBearingPod

A listener suggested The Lost Boys (1987), and LBB watches and reviews it. This movie is kind of delightful and, according to Laci, is a thorough and unrelenting look at the destructiveness of heroin addiction. Matt dislikes Haim, likes Feldman. ALSO: We debut our new recurring feature, the Mickey's Clubhouse Clubhouse, in which Laci pokes holes in Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, a TV program for toddlers.   Time stamps: Mickey's Clubhouse Clubhouse: 04:25 The Lost Boys: 12:36   Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com Twitter: @LoadBearingPod

LBB is back for a new year! First up: It's the first X-Files movie: The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998). Matt loved this television show as a teenager and, by proxy, loved this movie. What does Laci think, having never seen it and being only minimally familiar with the TV series? Also: Much discussion about TV shows turned into movies. Then, Laci reexamines The Boondock Saints (1999), a movie about which she says, "It's something that I loved a lot and very intensely for about four years, because I thought it meant I was a certain kind of cool girl who, just, you know, got it." But how does it hold up now, and what did Matt think, after having preexisting prejudices against this movie despite never having seen it?   Time stamps:   The X-Files: Fight the Future: 05:46   The Boondock Saints: 34:01   Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com Twitter: @loadbearingpod

SPOILERS for this bonus mini-episode! Matt and Laci, fresh from having seen Star Wars: The Last Jedi, share their thoughts with each other. Matt's a huge Star Wars fan, Laci until had recently had never seen the original movies but is a big fan of The Force Awakens... what did they think? Again, please do not listen if you haven't yet seen this movie. We SPOIL the porg out of this film. SPOIL SPOIL SPOIL Darth Vader is Luke's father!   

Matt is finding it very difficult to think of anything other than Star Wars two days before The Last Jedi comes out, so the gang revisits the Star Wars saga by looking at The Empire Strikes Back (1980), widely considered the best film in the series. BUT FIRST it's Ron Howard's Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), a movie that takes the Grinchverse and expands it into directions you never knew you wanted... because you didn't want them. Yeah, this movie's actually very boring and visually unappealing and largely forgettable, but it at least leads to a long conversation about the merits of Jim Carrey. THEN: The first episode of Load Bearing Beams started with Laci viewing the original Star Wars film (which, by the way, should only be called Star Wars), and Matt insisted that the flaws she found in the film would be corrected in the sequel. Surely she must love or at least see the masterful merits of The Empire Strikes Back, no?  ALSO: Laci explains why crooners are the worst. Time stamps: The Grinc

Let's talk What About Bob: In this Frank Oz picture from 1991, Bill Murray plays Bob, and he is just so silly but you can't help but love him, the scamp! And Richard Dreyfuss is his cranky therapist who can't get his family to see how annoying his patient is, because the patient has followed his family on their vacation, see, but even though this is highly inappropriate and predatory behavior, Dreyfuss's family is charmed out of their very seats by Bob and his antics. We are all Richard Dreyfuss's Dr. Leo Marvin. We are all Bob. In the words of Robert Frost, "Where I have fallen on the Marvin/Bob spectrum on has made all the difference." Then, Laci and Matt discuss Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors (1991). How does this film hold up today, given Allen's biography and the cultural climate of the current moment? Is this movie a confession? What does it say about you if you still want to enjoy Woody Allen's movies? Yeah, this was a pretty heavy episode, where even talking about the "friend zone" was weighty

Laci and Matt return, if not better than ever then at least not diminished, to discuss the films Jurassic Park III (2001) and My Girl (1991).  First up, it's Jurassic Park III, a movie selected by Matt because he loves the first Jurassic Park and this one also has dinosaurs on an island, so it'll do. The Roth-Stokeses assess this movie and its place in the larger Jurassic canon, especially when compared with Jurassic World. Then it's My Girl. What can you say about My Girl? This is a movie. Originally called Born Jaundiced, this treacly piece of '70s nostalgia coheres brilliantly with the type of treacly '90s nostalgia in which this podcast traffics so frequently.  Time stamps: Jurassic Park III [07:55] My Girl [27:40] Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com Twitter: @LoadBearingPod

Buffy is a beloved TV show to many, but it doesn't mean s**t to Laci, who prefers the 1992 film [05:55] of the same name. It's the tale of a Chosen One cheerleader doing battle against the occult and being courted by 56-year-old Luke Perry. What about this movie so spoke to Laci as a young person, and how does she feel about it now? And how funky is your chicken?  Then: Citizen Kane (1941) [20:30] is generally considered to be the greatest English-language film ever made. Matt has seen it many times, but it's been a while since the last time, and he's a little nervous in showing it to Laci for the first time. What do their fresh eyes have to say about this classic? Does Orson Welles age convincingly? Were people really depressed in the 1800s? I'll bet you five you're not alive if you don't enjoy this ep'.  Time stamps: Buffy the Vampire Slayer [05:55] Citizen Kane [20:30] Website: www.loadbearingbeams.com Twitter: @LoadBearingPod