After The Hype

We continue our delightful dive into the Showa Era Godzilla films this week with the energetic Son of Godzilla. It's a cheeseball film that delights in the silly antics of its titular character and only really manages to stumble when it comes to the human story. The costumes, props, puppets, and miniatures are in top form here and it's hard to not watch this with a grin on your face. This one goes out to all you reporters out there who parachute to mysterious islands to find the big stories.

Godzilla is such a pop culture icon that we thought it would be a great idea to dive into some of his more iconic outings this month on Behind the Hype, starting with the third film in the series: King Kong vs. Godzilla. Apart from one problem spot, the film is quite a delight and features everything fun you would expect from a showdown of two pop culture titans.

We've reached the end of our month on Sion Sono and to wrap things up we've picked quite the heavy film: Guilty of Romance. There's a lot to unpack with this film, about the role of women in Japanese society and the lengths they will go to break free from said pressures, or in some cases become consumed by them. As we were short a woman on this episode to give some perspective we tried to instead focus on the things we learned from the film and the themes that resonated with us versus trying to speak to Japanese culture and how it treats women.

Due to some version confusion we had to push our review of Guilty of Romance to next week. In its place we're going to talk about the movie that put Sion Sono on the map for western audiences: Suicide Club. It's difficult to summarize the movie and do the horrific imagery and biting commentary justice, but we do our best. Just the opening few minutes of the movie should clue you in on the doozy of a film you're about to experience.

Our Sion Sono retrospective continues with the rap opera Tokyo Tribe, a doozy of a film that starts out rough and then ends with one hell of a punchline. It features a cast of fascinating and colorful characters that sing their way through bouts of ultra-violence. It features perhaps one of the most fun and over-the-top villains we've seen yet on this podcast. And if that weren't enough, it features the daughter of a satanic high priest kicking all kinds of ass with her banana-eating kid sidekick. Have we convinced you to watch the film yet?

We're back from our break and we thought it would be a great idea to kick things off with a retrospective on director Sion Sono. You might remember him from our episode on Why Don't You Play In Hell. Yeah, that guy. Anyway, we're starting with his 2015 film Tag, featuring perhaps one of the most surprising openings to be put to film. Seriously, you might want to be sitting down for this one.Of course, with a filmmaker like this it's worth looking into the themes he plays in and we found an interesting article to be our guiding star through this month.You sitting down yet? Good. Now watch out for the wind. 

We close out our month of That Wasn't The F**king Plan with the best movie out of the four we talked about, although that's not saying much: The Emperor's New Groove. It's a strange film in the Disney archive, fraught with all kinds of production drama. We talk a bit about what the original plan was, and then try to figure out where things went wrong. We also note how the film has a great third act and how Kronk probably should have been the star considering how much of the movie he stole from everyone else.This also marks the end of Behind the Hype for 2020. We'll be back a little bit later in the new year with more zany retrospectives that challenge how we think about films and the filmmakers who work on them.

You'd think that a movie about a filmmaker at war with himself that took ten years to make would be more interesting, but here we are. We're discussing Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote and let's just say that we had a lot of issues with it. Are we talking about an unwatchable dumpster fire of epic proportions? No. Not even close. It's just a very messy production that shows its seams at every turn and ends up being more boring than bad. If you like early Gilliam you won't find much of him here and that's a shame. The performances are good, but what would you expect from the likes of Jonathan Pryce and Adam Driver? We talk about all that and more in this week's episode.

This week in our month of "That Wasn't The F&#king Plan" we're talking about the David Ayer film Suicide Squad. The David Ayer film Suicide Squad is what we're talking about this week as we deep dive into films that weren't part of the F&#king Plan." As we dive into movies that didn't turn out the way they were planned, we thought it would be proper to talk about the David Ayer film Suicide Squad.Okay, I think that hammers home the point that Suicide Squad takes forever to get out of its introduction and never gets fully out of its own ass. Oh yeah, we brought in our Matt Dykes to help us talk about the absolute "trash fire" film Suicide Squad. We have a lot of fun, but there's no more time for these shownotes so just know we tear the movie a new asshole. Cheers.

That wasn't the f**kin plan! This month is all about the screw ups, the garbage fires, the things that didn't turn out the way they were initially intended. We're kicking off this month with the garbage film Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker and diving into all the things that went wrong with it. Turns out there's a lot. Now, before you - a Rise of Skywalker fan - get all huffy, we had one or two things that we liked about the film and we made sure to give those points their due. On the whole, however, we found the film to be bantha poo-doo. Enjoy our rant and may the force be with you!

Happy Thanksgiving! We know it's a bit tough this year around the holidays so we decided to invite you into our homes figuratively to talk about the last film in our Hugo Weaving retrospective: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. It's a great film filled with amazing performances. There's a lot to love here and we talk about it all. The film does struggle to stick the landing with one character deadnaming another, and guys, that's a fucking bummer. Consider this a bit of a caution as you proceed with both the movie and our discussion of the scene.Stay safe out there, everyone, and enjoy our episode!

We continue this roller coaster month of Hugo Weaving films with Last Ride, a father and son road trip movie that's as dour as it is excellent. Weaving gives a stellar performance here as Kev, an abusive father with almost no likeable or redeemable qualities. Almost. Somehow, despite an entire movie of being an absolute shit, you still feel bad for the guy and his situation. And Tom Russell is no slouch either, playing the son Chook. With their powers combined, they really make us miserable, and that's a good thing. Is this film a great idea during these challenging times? Maybe not. But you owe it to yourself to see a movie that does right by its genre.

Unfortunately we've got a bit of a downgrade this week as we talk about Mortal Engines for our month of Hugo Weaving. There are things to like here, the setting being the chief among them. It's an interesting world with some equally interesting lore, and it all looks absolutely gorgeous. Where the film loses us is with everything else. The plot is bland and at times nonsensical, and no one is giving much in the way of their performance. Hugo Weaving has almost nothing to work with here with his first draft villain Valentine, and line reads that should play with gravitas just fall flat. The leads have no chemistry, which makes the eventual "falling in love" that's required of all YA feel like it comes out of left field. We discuss plenty more about it, but you'll have to listen to find out what we say.

Remember, remember! The Fifth of November...for it is the beginning of Hugo Weaving Month here at Behind the Hype. To kick things off we're starting with the flawed V For Vendetta, which boasts great performances from Weaving and others (see: Creedy), while not necessarily aging all that well. It's tough to root for a a character who gaslights and tortures the female protagonist (Evey, played by Natalie Portman) in a movie with already so few women in it. Doesn't help either that the character of Evey is so passive. That said, the Wachowskis wrote the script and you can feel their hand in a lot of what transpires onscreen.

We decided to wrap up our Jamie Lee Curtis retrospective by reviewing the classic horror film Prom Night, the film that has inspired many horror movies since it was released and continues to inspire today. What did we think about it? Well, perhaps we should have watched Terror Train instead? There's some interesting stuff in Prom Night to be sure, but so much of it is either boring or just doesn't work or is just plain confusing. We even brought in our pal Matt Dykes to help us work through this thing and he had similar problems.But hey, if there's anything we learned from this it is that Jamie Lee Curtis is a cinematic treasure. If nothing else, watch the movie for her...and then watch Terror Train.

We continue our Jamie Lee Curtis retrospective with Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, her celebrated return to both the horror genre and this franchise in particular. We have a lot to say about the film as it's quite flawed and makes some odd choices throughout. The body count is low, and the mask changes partway through the film into something you might find at a pop up Halloween store. The film introduces Josh Hartnett and his messy hair baggy clothes combo to the world, and we see a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt get a skate to the face. Everything with Jamie Lee Curtis is quite good and she makes a traumatized Laurie Strode believable. Worth watching? Listen to find out.

We're traveling back in time to 1994 to talk about True Lies, James Cameron's take on Bond starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and our lady of the month Jamie Lee Curtis. It's quite the adventure, filled to the brim with action, humor, and fun performances from everyone involved. The only weak link is Tom Arnold, but he manages to hold on to the harrier jet, as it were.To assist us in our review of such a classic film we invited our pal Matt Dykes onto the show to give us his perspective.

October has arrived, and we decided it would be a great idea to do a retrospective on the top scream queen herself - Jamie Lee Curtis. We start the month with her most recent turn in the Rian Johnson film Knives Out. It's a tightly-paced and well-written whodunnit with really fun performances. And even though Jamie Lee Curtis doesn't have as much screen time as we would have liked, she commands every moment and makes this a great way to start our month.

We made it to the end of our very enlightening Eve Stewart retrospective and to celebrate we're discussing the divisive Tom Hooper spectacle Cats. There's a lot to love in this film, and there's a lot to hate, and really it boils down to how easy it is for you to get past Rebel Wilson and James Corden's abysmal performances. Production design here is stellar - big surprise - but Tom Hooper tries his best to focus on other things. Bad Hooper. Bad. All that said, is the film worth watching? Hit that play button and we'll tell you.

Thank you for your patience! This week we're back to talk about De-Lovely, the next film in our Eve Stewart retrospective. It's about the musical icon Cole Porter, played with zest by Kevin Kline, as he re-lives the best and worst of his life at the behest of the angel Gabriel (Jonathan Pryce). The film features songs written by Cole Porter, all sung by popular modern musicians. But the question remains: is the film any good?It's...charming, but never quite reaches "great." The real MVP of the film is Eve Stewart and her production design. It's breathtaking, and quickly overshadows everything else in the film. Join us, won't you?