F This Movie! - F This Summer! (2011)

Patrick, Doug and JB look back at the terrifying lows, the dizzying highs and creamy middles of Summer 2011.

Sh!#ting on the Classics: Horrible Beatles Movies

The Beatles are inarguably the most famous, most influential, and most beloved pop group in history. Radio stations still program “Breakfast with the Beatles” on weekend mornings. A recent trailer designed to get theater patrons to silence their cell phones features “All Together Now.” What other band could chart an album forty years after it broke up? (Sure, maybe the Mills Brothers. Why won’t they call me?)

For the short time they were a recording unit, the Beatles gave us everything they had—more than 250 infectious, beautiful songs that speak to every generation. One would think that they had done enough.  Let them be.

The curse of a capitalist society is that art must be commoditized to yield further profit; no stone is left unturned in the name of money and artistic license. The Beatles have been the victims of some of the worst artistic shit storms of the twentieth century. Put on your Hazmat suit; this sewer is deep and fragrant.

Director Essentials: Robert Zemeckis

Today's Director Essentials entry examines the long and varied career of Academy Award Winner and Northern Illinois University dropout Robert Zemeckis. Let's all get dead in the eyes and mo-cap our way through a list of his most important movies.

Watchin' Trailerz with Doug (August 26)

I'm going to apologize in advance for this VERY Chicago-centric introduction. Sorry readers from lesser cities! Does anyone watch WGN-TV morning news? Specifically, entertainment reporter Dean Richards and his craptacular "Dean's List" (you get it) segment? GOD HE IS THE WORST. From mispronouncing "biopic," to mistaking the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead for the original, he's an ass-kissing, TMZ-caliber insider (and one step away from writing the "Stars -- They're Just Like Us!" column for Us Weekly). While defenders (and Dean Richards himself) might claim he's a rebel by citing his (now famous?) encounter with Mel Gibson, true Chicagoans know he's just a trumped up voiceover actor. What bothers me the most is that he honestly considers himself as a bona fide film critic. Guy thought Inception was too confusing, but LOVED Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides! Which is a very weird movie to champion! He even gave The Smurfs a pass. I wouldn't even be all that irked if he just owned his hackiness. Seriously, Dean Richards needs to trip and fall (again), because the last thing we need is another one of these. "It's not that hard being a film cricket" -Dean Richards, most definitely.

F This Movie! - Star Trek (2009) (200th Post!)

Patrick and Mike are such nerds.



Download this episode here (62.5 MB).

Email F This Movie! at fthismoviepodcast(at)gmail.com

Subscribe to F This Movie! in iTunes

Become a fan of F This Movie! on Facebook and follow F This Movie! on Twitter

Also discussed this episode: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II, Conan the Barbarian (2011), Fright Night (2011)

Review: Tucker & Dale vs. Evil

by Patrick Bromley

I recently got around to seeing Stake Land, the 2010 vampire movie that's pretty much Zombieland (right down to the "land" part) but with vampires. And it's deadly, deadly serious. Sometimes too serious. And while that seriousness sometimes dares to cross over into pretentiousness, I had to give it to the movie for sticking to its guns (wooden stakes) and never trying to crack jokes or waste time "satirizing" the "conventions" of the vampire "genre." We're living in the Age of Irony now, where there are quotes around everything and where it's way easier to to guard yourself against ever seeming too sincere or silly by letting the audience know that it's all a big goof anyway; if something seems lame it's because it's supposed to be lame or if it doesn't work it's because it's not supposed to work. It's "satire," see?

Sh!#ting on the Classics: Directors!

Today’s lecture concerns directors who shit on their own classics. Yes, I am looking at you, George Lucas.