Load Bearing Beams

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

As an October hurricane heads for their house, Laci and Matt turn their attention to Napoleon Dynamite (2004) and Blade Runner (1982), a set of movies about inscrutable men and the women who can't help but love them.  First, Laci and Matt tackle Napoleon Dynamite [03:10], a movie about which Laci no longer knows how she feels, but which Matt calls "not unenjoyable." But does this collection of awkward quirks ultimately amount to something more than Mad Libs: The Movie? And is the secret to this film's enduring legacy merely that Napoleon's voice is easy to impersonate?  Then there's Blade Runner [23:27], a film utterly ruined for Laci by how much better its subject was handled in Westworld. This movie inspires one of this podcast's most heated arguments: Is Harrison Ford intentionally playing against type in Blade Runner, or is it exactly his type? 

We welcome Sara and Steve Jones to discuss A Little Princess (1995) [02:00] and Red Dawn (1984) [29:00]. We ran the gamut of topics in this episode: guerilla warfare, survivalism, what makes us cry in movies, chimney sweeps, the Ramayana, the Cold War, Jeff Goldblum's daughter from The Lost World: Jurassic Park, amnesia, Harry Potter, and much more. And is that Ser Davos, the Onion Knight, as the titular little princess's father? It is! Enjoy!

We discuss Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), one of Matt's favorite movies ever. Laci knew nothing about it, but was assured by her husband that its many puzzlebox mysteries would pay off in the end. Do they? We also discuss what predictions about the future got wrong and get to the bottom of whether or not we're all living in a computer simulation.  It (1990) is an annoyingly-titled movie* about the bond among a group of children in the 1950s and their whimsical adventures. In other words, it's computer engineered to aggravate Matt. In our discussion of this chronicle of the Losers Club and their battles against an evil alien clown-spider, we discuss, among other things, trypophobia, 90s Friday-night sitcoms, Laci's adolescent desire to be the girl who hangs out with the guys, and what it means for a topic to be Buzzfeed-y. Also, we give our hot take on clowns, which is that they are not scary.  *Not actually a movie.

Like the home video release of 1990's It, we're splitting this episode into two VHS tapes. In cassette 1 we discuss Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), one of Matt's favorite movies ever. Laci knew nothing about it, but was assured by her husband that its many puzzlebox mysteries would pay off in the end. Do they? We also discuss what predictions about the future got wrong and get to the bottom of whether or not we're all living in a computer simulation. 

Your married co-hosts debate Laci's grand unifying theory of movies. Must the movie have stakes? How big must these stakes be? (Big.) And can the stakes get bigger than they are in All the President's Men (1976) [05:52], in which the president's top aids are tied to a burglary operation via reporters' digging? Together, we dig in. Then we fall in love with Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette in True Romance (1993) [29:30]. Awwwwww! Also: What's up with Quentin Tarantino? 

Drop of the Fred with the Sickness in this spooktacular examination of childhood mental illness and mindless consumerism. That's right, it's 1991's Drop Dead Fred (Rotten Tomatoes score: 9%) and 1978's Dawn Of the Dead!  Again, Drop Dead Fred [02:48] has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 9%. Nine! Its reputation is far worse than any other movie covered on this show. Is it really that bad? Why is Laci is so fond of movies with silly stop motion effects? Is this movie actually a nuanced look at depression, divorce, and loneliness? Maybe!  And then there's Dawn Of the Dead [19:05], helmed by the recently-deceased George A. Romero. This classic of the zombie apocalypse genre with its commentary on American capitalism in the late 20th century mainly leads to a 30-minute conversation about malls.  Follow us on Twitter @LoadBearingPod, and visit us online at www.loadbearingbeams.com!

What do we really know? Is the future predetermined? Are human beings really free? These questions and more are addressed and resolved in the two movie selections Load Bearing Beams, episode 9: Alex Proyas's Knowing (2009) [03:30] and Amy Heckerling's Clueless (1995) [32:10]. Matt argues that even though Knowing is lumped in with the terrible cash-in movies of Nicolas Cage's later career, it's actually a thrilling and thought-provoking film. Is he right? And could anything be scarier than a weirdo kid furiously scribbling numbers on a piece of paper?  Also: Laci explains how Clueless is why she's able to sleep at night.

LBB welcomes its first guests: romantically entangled young power couple Sam Hall and Wade Hymel. Sam and Wade join Matt and Laci to discuss their own load-bearing beam movies. Sam's selection is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) [02:13]. But even though she is the guest, Matt seizes the pulpit to go on at length about the Harry Potter books—despite this being a podcast about movies. The gang muddles through Matt's gasbaggery to get to the bottom of whether or not Prisoner of Azkaban makes any sense to non-book readers, debate whether or not Hermione's academic career is tainted by her use of the Time Turner, and spend a surprising amount of time wondering whether or not that's really Gary Oldman (It is.). Then Wade brings forth his film, 1995's post-Cold War James Bond spy satellite electrokillray thriller GoldenEye [49:18]. And what is the deal with Pierce Brosnan, anyway? How important was the Nintendo 64 game to the legacy of this movie? Those topics and more—namely, Epcot rides and Spider-M

More fliffity-floo! Laci presents one of the best comedies ever made about an aging stage actress who takes a de-aging potion and then gets murdered by her husband but she can't die so she sticks around and continues her feud with a rival who took the same potion: Death Becomes Her (1992) [02:00]. Why were movies like this so appealing back in the early nineties, and why don't they get made anymore? This is yet another of Laci's movies to feature bodies doing hilariously bendy things they shouldn't be doing with the aid of pre-computer special effects... is this her "thing"? Laci also explains what made her recently turn against Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn.  Then, cast your mind back to 2004, before the Marvel Cinematic Universe was a thing and Tom Holland was but a romantic thought in his parents' heads*. Matt's selection this week is Spider-Man 2 (2004) [26:37], which he says is the best superhero movie ever made. Is it?  *Citation needed.

It's our highly-anticipated Ampersand Episode! Laci & Matt take a look at the historical seafaring epic Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003) [02:55], and Laci puts aside her prejudice against blondes to embrace Paul Bettany's performance as Charles Darwin Stephen Maturin, then conducts some in-depth research into the number of Russell Crowe characters whose names begin with the letter J. Next, the pair takes a look at Girl Stand By Me Now & Then (1995) [39:53], a movie that teaches the importance of friendship. Did you know that friendship is important? It is. Matt is yet again subjected to a movie about teenagers... what did he think? Is Laci just as moved now by Christina Ricci's tears as she was then? And has anybody ever cared about a friendship bracelet as much as Sam (Gaby Hoffmann) does in this film? (No.)

Are you ready for some whimsy? The show takes a deep dive into the films of Tim Burton after Laci picks Beetlejuice (1988) as her load-bearing beam and it leads to a sprawling conversation about how much fliffity-floo any one human being can tolerate. 

You're gonna need bigger ears to hear this gem of a half episode! In part A of episode 4, our hosts dive in to the world of "Jaws," (1975) which is not the name of the shark but still a weird thing to identify about the story (As Laci points out, it's like calling a slasher movie "Wrist."). What is it about this obscene bloodbath that made such a charmer for families, the original summer blockbuster? Was Quint (Robert Shaw) an anti-war pacifist? And are sharks really that scary? (They are.)  AND THEN: We all just want to fit in. We all know what it's like to feel like the outcast. We all accidentally summon tropical snakes with our minds. And we all miss 1996. So crank up the Our Lady Peace and join us for part B of our two-parter with "The Craft," a coming-of-age story about the travails of four teenage witches who use their magical witch powers to do witchcraft (but no wizardry). 

In space, no one can hear Matt and Laci scream at each other about the movie Alien (1979) [2:40]. Why are these intergalactic space travelers so blasé about their magical trip through outer space? What's up with Jonesy the cat? Will protocol save us all in the end? Will anybody back on Earth miss the crew members of the Nostromo after they're eaten by the alien [spoiler alert]?    Our hosts then move on to dig into The Breakfast Club (1985) [41:33]. And who could quarrel with this movie's Grease-esque message? This is Matt's first exposure to the Brat Pack... did he enjoy it? Is he a Judd Nelson or an Ally Sheedy, or is he maybe a John Kapelos (Carl the janitor)? And has Laci finally picked a movie that's actually good? 

Like many born in the 1980s, Laci is (or was) a big fan of Steven Spielberg's "Hook" (1991) [02:35]. Matt saw it when he was four years old and is revisiting it for the first time. Does the movie hold up? Find out the answer to that and hear unparalleled insight into such fascinating topics as: (1) Did Julia Roberts interact with a single other member of the cast? (2) Why does Neverland look like a Disney World attraction? And (3) Why do all John Williams scores sound like eating at a buffet?    Meanwhile, Matt was (or is) an admirer of John Carpenter's "Halloween" (1978) [34:10]. This horror classic established the template on which a generation of slasher films were based, and, according to critics, is as scary today as it was forty years ago. According to Laci, that is true, because it was never scary. But was it any good? Did people really talk like that in the '70s? And why do we watch scary movies, anyway, when there are so many nice things to make movies about like, uh, love. 

In the debut episode, Laci and Matt discuss the concept of load-bearing-beam movies, and then do a deep dive into their first selections. Matt chooses "Star Wars" (1977) [4:22] and Laci chooses "Dirty Dancing" (1987) [52:50]. Many important issues are tackled, including why the original "Star Wars" movie should only be referred to as "Star Wars"; how the Kellerman Resort is basically a summer camp and Patrick Swayze is a counselor; whether or not Mark Hamill is a good actor; why Baby would be allowed to dance at the Sheldrake; why Luke Skywalker seems untroubled by his family being brutally murdered; and how Patrick Swayze traveled back in time from the 1980s to ruin pop music. Will the Death Star destroy the Rebel Alliance? Will Johnny get his summer bonus? Laci and Matt get to the bottom of these questions and many more.