Load Bearing Beams

We take a trip to Montreal, to check in with the mild-mannered Dr. Nicholas "Oz" Oseransky (Matthew Perry) and his scary neighbor, Jimmy the Tulip (Bruce Willis). Can you even imagine what shenanigans these two get up to? We'll tell you all about them in our discussion of the 2000 hitman/dental comedy The Whole Nine Yards.  Most of this episode is a fierce argument about whether or not all the Matthew Perrying Matthew Perry does in this movie is good or bad.  Next week: Casablanca (1942)! Watch full-video episodes of Load Bearing Beams on our YouTube channel.   Time stamps: 00:03:16 — Our personal histories with The Whole Nine Yards 00:14:57 — Pre-movie predictions 00:18:50 — History segment: Career overviews of director Jonathan Lynn and star Matthew Perry 00:36:33 — In-depth movie discussion 01:16:22 — Final thoughts and star ratings     Artwork by Laci Roth.  Music by Rural Route Nine. Listen to their album The Joy of Averages on Spotify (https://bit.ly/48WBtUa), Apple Music (https://bit.ly/3Q6kOVC), or Yo

We have to postpone our episode this week because of some ridiculous weather events that basically threw our lives into chaos. Here's what happened: It got cold in Louisiana. No one knew what to do, so they shut down the schools, the roads, everything. Three days at home with the kids, unable to work, or think, or podcast. So we have to push back our schedule and do our episode on The Whole Nine Yards on Friday, January 26; our episode on Casablanca will follow on Friday, February 1, 2024. Thank you for your support of Load Bearing Beams. We love you, bye!

Once there was a time when Star Wars was just the name of a movie, and not the most toxic subject ever to hit the internet. Well, we yearn for that time, listener... so go with us on this journey back to the Skywalker homestead and get ready to harvest some moisture as we return to the very first movie we ever discussed on the show: Star Wars (1977). Among other things, Matt reiterates for the thousandth time that this movie should only ever be called Star Wars. You may be tempted to call it something else, perhaps some sort of chronological designation, or a fragmentary expression of some sort of new hopeulness. Resist this temptation. Also: We unpack why Laci has never been able to get into the original Star Wars movies, and why that is perfectly reasonable. Next week: The Whole Nine Yards (2000)!   Time stamps: 00:01:51 — Big-picture thoughts on the Star Wars franchise 00:10:25 — Our personal histories with Star Wars 00:22:28 — Pre-movie predictions 00:25:25 — History segment: Career overview of George Luc

To celebrate finally getting to episodes 99 and 100, we're going back to the very first two movies we covered on Load Bearing Beams and give these two classics the full LBB treatment they deserve. First up, it's Dirty Dancing (1988), one of Laci's favorite movies. It's a charming dancey melodrama with some surprisingly poignant political commentary that is much easier to see in 2024 than it was back in 2017.  Matt gave this movie a big fat thumbs-down on his first viewing for that first episode. Have his feelings changed? Can Laci teach him to mambo in time for the gig? And what exactly happened to Baby and Johnny after that memorable summer of '63? Find the answers to all these, and so much more, in our first episode of 2024. Next week: We're revisiting Star Wars (1977)! Watch each new episode of Load Bearing Beams in full on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@loadbearingbeamspod   Time stamps: 00:05:49 — Our personal histories with Dirty Dancing 00:09:58 — Pre-movie predictions 00:16:58 — History

Happy New Year, y'all. We're ringing in what promises to be the most cursed year ever with our very first mailbag!   Time stamps:   00:04:40 — What are our new year's resolutions for the podcast and for our movie watching?   00:12:08 — Where's the weirdest place we've made whoopee?   00:12:57 — Which movie or TV show was the biggest waste of our time?   00:19:11 — What was the most surprisingly good movie we've covered on the podcast?   00:22:24 — What movie did someone hype up so much that it ruined the experience for us when we finally watched it?   00:29:58 — What is one movie that takes us straight back to childhood and gives us instant comfort?   00:35:40 — What are our criteria for movies that are not Load Bearing Beams?    00:39:00 — What was the first R-rated movie that we each saw all the way through, and how old were we?   00:42:25 — How many movies named Casino Royale count as official James Bond canon?   00:43:40 — What are some of our favorite recent movies?   00:46:02 — What were some of our big

Fine. Fine. No problem at all. We'll talk about the actual movie. Also: Happy holidays! Thank you for a great year! We'd normally have an episode coming out on Friday, Dec. 22, but we're taking a break and shall return on Friday, December 29 with a very special mailbag episode. And after that, we're on to episodes 99 and 100, where we'll revisit the movies covered on our very first episode (Dirty Dancing and Star Wars). It only took us seven years to get to a hundred episodes.   Time stamps: 00:02:15 — Thoughts about the new movie Wonka, which we haven't yet seen 00:08:59 — Our histories with Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory 00:11:43 — Pre-movie predictions 00:23:23 — History segment: Roald Dahl (author of Charlie & The Chocolate Factory), the strange development of this movie and its entanglement with the Quaker Oats company, director Mel Stuart, and star Gene Wilder 01:00:47 — In-depth movie discussion 02:12:06 — Final thoughts and star ratings   Artwork by Laci Roth.  Music by Rural Route Nine. Li

When Laci wins a Golden Ticket, she invites Matt as her plus-one for her super-secret tour of Willy Wonka's factory... and we're violating our NDAs by bringing you along too! Have you ever wanted to know the functional purpose of the Chocolate Room, where everything is edible? Or why the city of Munich seems to have such fanatical attachment to the Wonka Corporation? And what exactly Mr. Wonka is doing behind those walls, and what his products are doing to our libidos? And, uh... If you want to hear us actually talk about the 1971 Gene Wilder movie, we have a whole 2-plus-hour episode about coming out on Monday (Dec. 17, 2023) for you. Happy holidays!  

Get out your stapler gun and empty your shitter, because it’s time to look at the holiday classic National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989) in extraordinary detail.  Laci’s seen this film dozens of times, while Matt had only seen it once, decades ago. To prepare, he watched the entire Vacation series, and he has much to say about the merits of the individual Vacation films, despite no one asking him to do this. Plus, we admire Clark Griswold’s aptitude for concealing his boners and Randy Quaid’s aptitude for lifting giant bags of dog food. Happy holidays, everybody! Watch this episode in full: https://youtu.be/MNhh7EfxV_4  Next week: We’re doing a very normal episode about Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971).  At the end of the month, we’re doing a mailbag. Please submit questions to us. We’ll answer them! Here’s where you do it: https://youtu.be/yzFA8dTPYsI   Time stamps: 00:03:19 — Our personal histories with Christmas Vacation 00:07:45 — Pre-movie predictions 00:18:46 — History segment: The Har

Matt had Laci watch the “beloved” “family” Christmas-present-hunt movie Jingle All the Way (1996). So… did she have a good time? Listener, she did not. But you’ll have a good time hearing them commiserate about the experience for two hours. Why would a movie cast Arnold Schwarzeneggar to play a normal man? When is it inappropriate to buy a Christmas tree? And wouldn't this movie have been better if the quest for a coveted Turbo Man figure sent Howard (Schwarzeneggar) deep into the seedy Santa-sexual Christmas underbelly of Minneapolis? It's there in this movie if you look for it. Watch this episode in full on YouTube: https://youtu.be/QvybI1j61us  Next week: We’re covering Laci’s all-time favorite Christmas movie: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989) We’re doing a mailbag! Please submit questions to us. We’ll answer them! Here’s where you do it: https://youtu.be/yzFA8dTPYsI Time stamps: 00:02:36 — When did Christmas start to suck? 00:10:11 — Our personal histories with Jingle All the Way 00:14:33 — Pr

Hey folks! If you hadn't heard, we took this week off (on account of Thanksgiving). We'll be back in one week (Friday, December 1, 2023) with our episode about the Arnold Schwarzenegger family comedy Jingle All the Way, co-starring Future Darth Vader. Thank you so much for supporting our ridiculous show.  Matt's been doing some video reviews of recent movies on our YouTube channel. Check out: The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes - https://youtu.be/C4rMMOPdZ6I The Marvels - https://youtu.be/ZIBdcn_c7Zs Killers of the Flower Moon - https://youtu.be/9kLdXLaXlsM ALSO: We'll be doing a mailbag episode at the end of the year. Please send us your questions about movies, episodes we've done, or anything else, I guess. Tweet them to us @loadbearingpod or leave a comment on one of our YouTube videos: https://www.youtube.com/@loadbearingbeamspod

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t cure its depression. We discuss this sad fact with our friend Drew (a.k.a. Drewbie Doobie’s Movies, @drewbiedoobiemovie on TikTok) by covering a movie he loved growing up, Wolfgang Petersen’s The NeverEnding Story (1984). Yes, this movie traumatized a generation of children, but to look upon it now is to see into an alternate dimension of unbelievable practical effects and puppetry. Laci, Matt, and Drew have a great conversation gushing over how incredible this movie looks, and also get to the bottom of important questions such as: Why does Bastian spend his day off hiding inside his school? Are Atreyu and Falkor more than just friends? And is Bastian’s dad the most evil character in cinema history?  Please follow Drew on TikTok and check out the great videos he’s making about movies and physical media: https://www.tiktok.com/@drewbiedoobiemovie Next week: We’re taking a Thanksgiving break. We’ll be back with a new episode on Friday, December 1st, about the Arnold

Friend of the Show Cinematic Joshua (@CinematicJoshua on TikTok) joins us for a rollicking conversation about the cult classic Ashton Kutcher time travel picture The Butterfly Effect (2004).  Laci, Matt, and Joshua discuss the career of Ashton Kutcher, the influence of the Final Destination series on this movie, and the many different time strands this movie juggles, as well as the merits of the conventional Hollywood ending of the theatrical cut and the extremely dark original ending included in the director’s cut.  Content warning: We discuss the movie's depictions of sexual assault and self-harm.  Please follow Joshua on TikTok and check out the great work he’s doing: https://www.tiktok.com/@cinematicjoshua Time stamps: 00:06:27 — Our histories with The Butterfly Effect 00:09:52 — History segment: Career overviews of the writer/director team Eric Bress & J. Mackeye Gruber, and of stars Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart 00:21:43 — In-depth movie discussion 01:44:40 — Final thoughts and star ratings

Man, if you weren't there in the Philadelphia department store scene back in '87, then you just wouldn't get it. Luckily, the movie Mannequin (1987) is here to fill you in: It's a battle of two behemoth stores—the mom-and-pop-owned Prince & Company and the tacky upstart Illustra. At the center of it all is Jonathan Switcher (Andrew McCarthy), a dreamer with a heart of gold who falls in love with a mannequin (Kim Cattrall). Except this mannequin's secretly a real person, inhabited by the spirit of an ancient Egyptian woman named Emmy. Tale as old as time.  Swirling around all of this is a fiery debate between your hosts over whether Andrew McCarthy is a loveable and sweet everyman (Laci) or a translucent void lacking any semblance of charisma or screen presence (Matt).  Watch this episode in full on YouTube: https://youtu.be/AT5pS0Y-TqQ Time stamps: 00:03:08 — Laci's history with Mannequin and why she wanted to cover it on this episode 00:05:07 — Pre-movie predictions 00:08:10 — History segment: Career ov

We head back to Haddonfield, Illinois for another encounter with Laurie, Annie, Lynda, Michael, Sheriff Brackett, and that wacky Dr. Loomis. That's right, we're taking another (much longer) look at one of Matt's favorite movies, John Carpenter's Halloween (1978). Untouchable classic this picture may be, but Laci was not a fan back in 2017. Surely time has softened her impenetrable heart... or has it? This film established so many hallmarks of the horror genre that are still used today. But there's so much more to unpack! How did Dr. Loomis not lose his medical license? Did Bob and Lynda put the Jack-O-Lantern next to the bed, or was it already there? And what does Michael Myers think about orgasm equity?  This is our fourth and final entry in this year's collection of Load Bearing SCREAMS.    Time stamps: 00:03:17 — According to a recent study*, jump scares are dying! 00:05:38 — Our respective histories with Halloween (1978), including the previous episode we did on it 00:14:17 — Pre-movie predictions 00:21:5

Have any movie characters ever been more sinister and disgusting than the Addamses? No. But we can't help but love them anyway, gosh darn it. We take a deep dive into the world of the Addams Family, first going through their long history and then talking about Barry Sonnenfeld's Addams Family Values (1993), the sequel to the original Addams Family (1991) that was a financial disappointment but has since become even more beloved.    Time stamps: 00:21 — Our personal history with the Addams movies and TV shows + predictions 15:13 — History of The Addams Family, from cartoon beginnings through the 1990s movies 43:36 — Discussion of Addams Family Values   This is our third entry in this year's collection of Load Bearing SCREAMS.  Head to https://www.youtube.com/@loadbearingbeamspod to watch new, full video episodes every week. Artwork by Laci Roth. Music by Rural Route Nine (https://open.spotify.com/album/3oj7ZSGqfnZTtTlXa1fyeo?si=fZxDj8ZWT-2SpxhTUIdxow). 

Is M. Night Shyamalan's Signs (2002) just a bunch of corny rubbish, or is Matt right when he calls it the scariest movie he's ever seen? We made our longest episode ever to figure it out.  He's seen this movie so many times he can recite every minute detail of it. We talk about weird background characters, the newsworthiness of crop circles, the threat level posed by armadillos, the acute stress one goes through preparing one's house for an alien attack, and so much more.  It's the second entry in this year's collection of Load Bearing SCREAMS. Ghost scaring beams. Boo!  Head to https://www.youtube.com/@loadbearingbeamspod to watch new, full video episodes every week. Artwork by Laci Roth. Music by Rural Route Nine (https://open.spotify.com/album/3oj7ZSGqfnZTtTlXa1fyeo?si=fZxDj8ZWT-2SpxhTUIdxow). 

For the first time on our show, we're revisiting a movie we already covered. It's Tim Burton's second feaure, 1988's Beetlejuice. Matt didn't like this spooky haunted house classic back in 2017, but does he feel any differently all these years later? And how complicated were stereo instructions, anyway? To answer these questions and many more, we devote about three times as much time talking about the movie as we did the first time around.  And while you're at it, head to https://www.youtube.com/@loadbearingbeamspod to watch new, full video episodes every week. Artwork by Laci Roth. Music by Rural Route Nine (https://open.spotify.com/album/3oj7ZSGqfnZTtTlXa1fyeo?si=fZxDj8ZWT-2SpxhTUIdxow).   

The fifties, baby. We're taking a look at 1998's Pleasantville, which takes a look at a 1950s America that never was, and always will be. This movie, marketed as a comedy, is actually a pretty serious look at fascism, oppression, and forced conformity, and would it surprise you to hear its message is still relevant today? We thought we were past all of that! Want to watch our show on YouTube? Head  to https://www.youtube.com/@loadbearingbeamspod to watch new, full video episodes every week. Artwork by Laci Roth. Music by Rural Route Nine (https://open.spotify.com/album/3oj7ZSGqfnZTtTlXa1fyeo?si=fZxDj8ZWT-2SpxhTUIdxow).   

The nineties, baby. We're getting into it over Romy & Michele's High School Reunion (1997), which sees Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino as the attractive women version of Beavis and Butt-Head trying to persuade their former high school classmates that they invented Post-Its. But beneath this sweet and pleasant comedy lurks something far more sinister. Is this actually a toxic, co-dependant friendship that's imprisoning both Romy and Michele? Would their lives be better if they actually stayed split up after their Tucson road trip? And why would anybody ever want to go to their high school reunion? Content warning: We discuss the sexual abuse allegations against both Woody Allen and Harvey Weinstein.  Want to watch our show on YouTube? Head to https://www.youtube.com/@loadbearingbeamspod to watch new, full video episodes every week. Artwork by Laci Roth. Music by Rural Route Nine (https://open.spotify.com/album/3oj7ZSGqfnZTtTlXa1fyeo?si=fZxDj8ZWT-2SpxhTUIdxow). 

Come on down to our podcast and have yourself a time. Laci and Matt have a long conversation about the 1999 Trey Parker-helmed South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. We go step by step through the movie and its history, as well as the larger history of the South Park TV series and how our relationships with it have changed over time. It's not easy spinning an animated show off into a big screen movie—you have to appeal to existing fans while bringing in new ones, and tell a story worthy of a big budget and an extended running time. So, does this movie pull it off? We compare it to The Simpsons Movie, Beavis & Butt-Head Do America, and The Bob's Burgers Movie to see how it well it holds up. Hey, we have a full video version of this episode up on YouTube. https://youtu.be/gedWc8El0Ig?si=e4zk7bw7LjoSeKQc