Drinking Night with a Movie Problem

Ep 87 | As Good As It Gets

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 13:00:00 -0500

More Jack Nicholson!

Ep 86 | Death Race 2000

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0500

What did we just watch?

Ep 85 | Death Becomes Her

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0500

Should have published this right after The Substance, a GREAT double feature.

Ep 84 | Speed Racer

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 10:00:00 -0500

Go Speed Racer Go!

Ep 82 | Tokyo Cowboy

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 09:00:00 -0400

Ranch time!

Ep 83 | The Substance

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 09:00:00 -0400

Halloween spooky movie time!

Ep 81 | The Brave Little Toaster

Fri, 15 Aug 2025 19:00:00 -0400

Aww, the not-Disney classic that has no formal distribution. Today it's famous for being the movie that got John Lasseter fired from Disney. Was it any good?

Ep 80 | Better Man

Wed, 13 Aug 2025 14:00:00 -0400

Better Man! The British biopic of a rock star we should know. But don't!

Ep 79 | Bamboozled

Tue, 12 Aug 2025 15:00:00 -0400

Laura and Matt watch the 2000 movie by Spike Lee that caused and continues to cause a stir: Bamboozled.

Ep 78 | My Fair Lady & Trading Places

Sun, 20 Jul 2025 22:00:00 -0400

This weekend we double featured the rags to riches makeover movies!

Ep 77 | Her

Mon, 30 Jun 2025 19:00:00 -0400

Tonight we watched Spike Jones' weirdly prescient Her.

Ep 76 | 28 Years Later

Mon, 23 Jun 2025 08:00:00 -0400

The power went out, so we went to the theater to watch 28 Years Later, a triumphant return of Danny Boyle and Alex Garland. It's a bit disjointed, but each story within the runtime has some great moments.

Ep 75 | We Live in Time

Fri, 20 Jun 2025 09:00:00 -0400

Tonight we watched the chronically scattered We Live in Time, great performances, and gorgeous cinematography.

Ep 74 | Mountainhead

Tue, 03 Jun 2025 08:00:00 -0400

Matt and Laura watch 4 tech billionaires show just the extent of their hubris (and the limits of their competence) as one of their latest apps pushes the world to the brink.

Ep 73 | Vampire Weekend: Sinners & Nosferatu (2024)

Fri, 02 May 2025 00:00:00 -0400

This weekend we double featured the 2 most outstanding vampire movies.

Ep 72 | Midsommar

Tue, 29 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

Tonight we watched a horror film long overdue: Midsommar.

Ep 71 | Anora

Sun, 27 Apr 2025 22:00:00 -0400

Tonight we watched Anora. Yay best picture.

Ep 70 | The Social Network

Sun, 02 Feb 2025 09:00:00 -0500

Does The Social Network hold up 15 years later? Is the cinematic portrait of Mark Zuckerberg more or less damning? We sat down to watch this classic, and, spoiler, it does!

Ep 69 | Milk

Sun, 08 Dec 2024 00:00:00 -0500

Forgot to publish this summer watch: Milk! All about Harvey Milk. An M, I, L, and a K, we're talking about Milk!

Ep 68 | Arcane

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 21:00:00 -0500

We breezed through the two seasons of Arcane this week, admiring the art, the plot, and the style. Season 1 has a tighter story, but it's great to see the show returning, and we're looking forward to the next story with Fortiche and Riot.

Ep 67 | Waves

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 12:00:00 -0500

Coming to you from Prague, we stepped into the theater to watch Waves, an awesome movie covering the radio broadcasting the end of the Prague Spring. A hell of a ride.

Ep 66 | LA Confidential

Mon, 03 Jun 2024 23:00:00 -0400

Laura and Matt revisit the noir genre with a 90's take on 50's detective dramas. Watch out Guy Pearce, that *is* Lana Turner!

Ep 65 | Call Me By Your Name

Wed, 08 May 2024 23:00:00 -0400

After a weekend watching Challengers, we sat down to catch Luca's earlier work, Call Me Your Boyfriend. I mean By Your Name.

Ep 64 | My Lucky Stars

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 22:00:00 -0400

Early Jackie Chan bursts onto the scene as one of the ensemble cast of My Lucky Stars. Full of jokes and great choreography and directed by Sammo Hung, a friend from the Beijing Opera, this movie is just delightful.

Ep 63 | Internal Affairs

Tue, 09 Apr 2024 23:00:00 -0400

Laura & Matt continue their trek with more Hong Kong cinema! Tonight's movie is 'Internal Affairs' - an undercover cop cat-and-mouse thriller from the early 'aughts.

Ep 62 | The God of Cookery

Mon, 08 Apr 2024 23:00:00 -0400

Stephen Chow's earlier film, The God of Cookery. Is it goodery?

Ep 61 | The Holdovers & Robot Dreams

Wed, 13 Mar 2024 21:00:00 -0400

Flying through Oscar nominations, we take a minute for 2 gems: Alexander Payne's Holdovers - a warming indie romp with an Oscar-worthy performance by Giamatti, and Robot Dreams, a shockingly charming indie animated film! Totally deserving of its nomination. We're rooting for these.

Ep 60 | Past Lives

Fri, 01 Mar 2024 10:00:00 -0500

A poignant indie film about what could have been.

It's the Sunrise Trilogy meets Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Four best picture nominations down, six to go, think we'll make it?

Ep 59 | The Report

Thu, 07 Dec 2023 23:00:00 -0500

Adam Driver, an ex-marine, stars in a film that captures the events of gross misconduct by the CIA over the past decade. From torture to lying to Congress, we revisit the legacy of John Brennan and Diane Feinstein, who's actually quite competent in the bipartisan effort to reveal the truth. A great starting point for contemporary history, but ultimately a film that hopefully inspires people to dig a little deeper in The Report.

Ep 58 | Suzume

Tue, 28 Nov 2023 01:00:00 -0500

Join Matt and Laura for a magical adventure through Japan! Our titular heroine Suzume comes of age as she grapples with typical teenage things like getting a boyfriend, forging an identity independent of a parent figure, and releasing a giant worm from the otherworld through a magical door that will cause catastrophic earthquakes killing thousands if she can't convince her new cat to stop goofing off and be a mystical keystone again.

Ep 57 | Duel & American Graffiti

Mon, 27 Nov 2023 21:00:00 -0500

Matt and Laura talk the American car culture of the 1970s, the loneliness and vulnerability of the empty American West, and attempted vehicular homicide.

Ep 56 | The Beguiled (1971)

Sun, 26 Nov 2023 20:00:00 -0500

Laura and Matt watch Don Siegel's 1971 Civil War film. Equally interesting and off-putting ... Matt and Laura both thought the first had had potential, but we both struggled to suspend our disbelief in the later. Because 12 is old enough for kisses??

Ep 55 | Napoleon

Thu, 23 Nov 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Laura & Matt take a trip to Alamo Drafthouse to see the new Napoleon movie! Laura has opinions on the awkward horse moments, Matt has opinions on the historical accuracy, but they both agree the Austerlitz sequence is crazy-well shot!

Ep 54 | Lost Boys

Mon, 13 Nov 2023 22:00:00 -0500

Peak 80s, peak hair, peak grunge, peak Kiefer Sutherland. He bleeds charisma. And this movie is the most excellent horror film we've seen this year.

Ep 53 | House

Wed, 08 Nov 2023 23:00:00 -0500

It's spooky season! Criterion suggested the cult classic, House. It's 50% actual horror and 50% early internet cutout lolz random humor. But done in the 1970s! How time-consuming. Definitely worth watching over and over again.

Ep 52 | Marie Antoinette

Tue, 07 Nov 2023 12:00:00 -0500

A few weeks ago we podcasted about Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette in preparation for Priscilla, but alas, it was caught in my outbox for far too long!

Ep 51 | Cleopatra

Sun, 08 Oct 2023 23:00:00 -0400

The 1963 epic that supposedly takes place in 40 BC but feels a little anachronistic. It is the definitive epic, a scale to marvel all of cinema, and kind of makes you wonder if they had so much money for boats and goats, why didn't they write a more complex character study for Cleo and her loverboys?

Ep 50 | Amadeus

Wed, 27 Sep 2023 23:00:00 -0400

Tonight we watched the epic, 3 hour biopic. It's bold, it's dramatic, it's delicious.

Ep 49 | Glory

Tue, 05 Sep 2023 10:00:00 -0400

As Matt wraps up his Ulysses S. Grant biography, Laura insisted on the movie about "you know, when Simba was leading the first black soldiers."

The film holds up in some ways, but there are a few awkward "Pocahontas" moments.

Still, the soundtrack is outstanding, the cinematography compelling, and the battle scenes epic.

Ep 48 | Barbenheimer & Elemental

Mon, 07 Aug 2023 22:00:00 -0400

Matt and Laura tackle the internet phenomenon that is the bomb! Our conclusions: Oppenheimer suffered from RDJ's framing device (controversial, I know), Barbie didn't take itself seriously for 30 seconds and you shouldn't either, and Elemental was surprisingly good for a complete flop at the box office.

Ep 47 | Nimona

Tue, 25 Jul 2023 12:00:00 -0400

We broke our rule about 'no contemporary' because we've been slammed with personal. So here's to Nimona! An easy watch, absolutely adorable.

Ep 46 | Richard the III (1995)

Mon, 22 May 2023 22:00:00 -0400

Now is the spring of our greatest content with Ian McKellen in Richard the III. It's the right amount of camp, an ungodly amount of gloss, and very 90s special effects. But here's to a movie about the 1400s, written in the 1590s, recontextualized in the 1930s, filmed in the 1990s, and analyzed in the 2020s!

Ep 45 | The Grand Budapest Hotel

Wed, 17 May 2023 23:00:00 -0400

Wes Anderson sums up his own aesthetic in his Magnum Opus: To be frank, I think his world vanished long before he ever entered it. But he certainly sustained the illusion with a marvelous grace.

SO! Matt & Laura watch the quintessential Wes Anderson movie, and Matt quietly plots to get her to watch I <3 Huckabees as a follow-up.

Ep 44 | Argo

Tue, 09 May 2023 10:00:00 -0400

Argo! Best picture and an all-around great film that focused such a spotlight on the American effort, the Canadians felt understandably underrepresented. But the movie still shines with excellent editing and a great script.

Ep 43 | White Men Can't Jump (1992)

Mon, 08 May 2023 22:00:00 -0400

The year is 1992. Operation Desert Storm is greenlit. Dances With Wolves just won Best Picture. But the streets are their own battle as Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes exchange hoops and wit on the basketball court. This movie bleeds 90s culture, so in the world are they going to remake it for a 2023 audience? TBD ....

Ep 42 | Shrek 2

Sun, 30 Apr 2023 21:00:00 -0400

Matt and Laura are back! And so are Shrek and Donkey! It's kind of a long story, but, well, now they're sexy!

That is a donkey quote Matt got to put in when Laura let him write the description and now he insists on keeping it because the film revolves around Shrek getting a glow-up to try to fit in with his new human in-laws. Please read as a film reference and not a sign that anyone in this household is attracted to Shrek or Donkey. Well, maybe Donkey a little.

Ep 41 | Twins

Mon, 27 Mar 2023 23:00:00 -0400

The first of two (or more?) Devito & Schwarzenegger classic films, Twins! Wouldn't it be funny if those two were twins? Well now you don't have to guess, you can watch the 1988 hit, Twins! Does this movie have plot holes? Yes! Is it laugh out loud funny? Not really! But hey, it's charming when the muscle man and the chonky boy wear the same suit.

Ep 40 | All Quiet on the Western Front

Fri, 24 Mar 2023 10:00:00 -0400

I'm going to ask you a very pointed question: which movie has the worst knife fight? Are you team Matt with Saving Private Ryan, or team Laura with All Quiet?

Ep 39 | Clue

Mon, 27 Feb 2023 23:00:00 -0500

Tonight we watched the most excellent classic camp: Clue. We'd like to say, Tim Curry's greatest performance of his career, but it's Tim Curry, so it's one of a dozen brilliant acts.

Ep 38 | Lord of War

Mon, 20 Feb 2023 20:00:00 -0500

Warlord! I mean Lord of War! A spectacularly cynical film about a gun-runner at the collapse of the Soviet Union. Spoiler, it's dark bro.

Ep 37 | Schindler's List

Mon, 20 Feb 2023 19:00:00 -0500

Spielberg's masterpiece: Schindler's List. What is there to say? The cinematography is emotional, the soundtrack is gut-wrenching, and the subject matter is devastating.

Ep 36 | Barbarian

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 20:00:00 -0500

We watched Barbarian over the weekend! A great indie horror, a little split over the theme, but asking the good ol' question: who is the real monster!?

Ep 35 | The Menu

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 22:00:00 -0500

The Menu is a movie with a split personality. Is it exploring the dark recesses of an obsessive artist, or is it uncovering class distinctions in the modern world? What was supposed to be a half-hearted midnight movie kept us up past our bedtime :)

Ep 34 | Ghost in the Shell

Wed, 18 Jan 2023 20:00:00 -0500

We watched the cult classic that just keeps getting remade and remade and remade: Ghost in the Shell. Heavily influenced by Bladerunner and cyberpunk dystopia, Major is 99.8% cyborg and 0.2% human wondering if she really is a person. The movie is spectacularly produced, the animation, the art direction, the music, the compositions, the special effects, they're all incredible! The #deep pontifications about what it means to be human are ... tried. Still, a phenomenal watch and highly recommended.

Ep 33 | Rashomon

Thu, 12 Jan 2023 22:00:00 -0500

Tonight we sat through the dappled truth in Rashomon! Laura's memory of Rashomon was a movie about a murder told through three lenses. But upon a rewatch, it appears to be less about the murder and oddly about Rape & Reputation.

Ep 32 | TENET

Sat, 07 Jan 2023 23:00:00 -0500

Happy New Year! We're back from a great holiday adventure and sit down to watch TENET, Nolan's latest time-traveling visual spectacular. Laura went in with such low expectations, the film was an absolute delight, a confusing delight. Matt was simply confused.

Ep 31 | Nightcrawler

Mon, 28 Nov 2022 00:00:00 -0500

Dive into the streets of LA with Jake Gyllenhaal playing a totally normal human with emotions and empathy as he films crime scenes for a local news channel. It's a dark film, but it's an industry!

Ep 30 | Silence

Sun, 13 Nov 2022 00:00:00 -0500

Martin Scorsese's beautiful, resonant Silence takes center stage on our projector. It's a compelling film with a lot of #deepthoughts and not a lot of subtlety. Highly recommended!

Ep 29 | Gremlins & Gremlins 2

Mon, 17 Oct 2022 21:00:00 -0400

This weekend we watched the utter chaos of the two Gremlins movie, and boy are they WILD!

Ep 28 | Entergalactic

Mon, 10 Oct 2022 22:00:00 -0400

Tonight we caught Entergalactic, the Kid Cudi Netflix special that has taken another leap into 2D textured 3D animation, and BOY does it look good!

Ep 27 | Coda

Mon, 03 Oct 2022 21:00:00 -0400

We finally sat down to watch last year's Best Picture, Coda. A super charming movie about a hearing girl with a deaf family and her struggle to break away. It's full of interesting characters, witty dialogue, and a beautiful exploration of the hearing vs deaf communities.

Ep 26 | Thirteen Lives

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 23:00:00 -0400

Do you remember the news story about a bunch of kids stuck in a cave in Thailand? Apparently Ron Howard made a movie about it! And he didn't include Elon Musk's theoretical submarine!

Ep 25 | Here's to the Young Lady

Wed, 10 Aug 2022 22:00:00 -0400

1949, Japan is reeling from it's role in WWII, and a director turns his lens on a woman who would later become an icon: Setsuko Hara. Here's to the Young Lady is a more obscure film that mirrors Gone with the Wind as a "country bumpkin" romances a class act who's wealthy family has fallen on harder times. It's a nice time capsule, though the Nice Guy (TM) is strong in this one.

Ep 24 | The Wind that Shakes the Barley

Tue, 02 Aug 2022 00:00:00 -0400

Matt and Laura sit down to watch the story of two brothers fighting for Irish independence in the 1920s.

Ep 23 | Philomena

Mon, 25 Jul 2022 23:00:00 -0400

Matt and Laura sit down to watch the contemporary classic, Philomena. Based on a true story crossing 3 countries and 5 decades and featuring the most terrifying real life villain we've ever seen.

Ep 22 | A Scanner Darkly

Tue, 19 Jul 2022 23:00:00 -0400

We sit down to watch Linklater's 2006 Philip K. Dick adaptation: A Scanner Darkly. A curious film about cognitive disassociation and getting really, really high. Just as Keanu's brain lobes fight to dominate his reality, this movie is equally split between a post-apocalyptic sci-fi, and the prequel to the Pineapple Express.

Ep 21 | No Regrets for Our Youth

Mon, 11 Jul 2022 22:00:00 -0400

Laura and Matt watch Kurosawa's post WW2 film, in which he explains to Japan how very, very, extremely bad that whole "going to war" idea they just had was. Less than a year after the war ended.

Ep 20 | Dumbo

Mon, 11 Jul 2022 22:00:00 -0400

Let's rewind to 1941 when Disney released its classic film Dumbo. Since it was a huge financial hit, and kids movies were scarce, it was rereleased throughout the century and has saturated our culture with a cute flying elephant. But it's kinda the OG Boss Baby. There's a ton of great things happening around the movie and in the studio, but the plot is pretty plotless.

Ep 19 | Last Night in Soho

Mon, 04 Jul 2022 21:00:00 -0400

Matt and Laura watch the latest Edgar Wright film, because nothing says 4th of July like a British movie! But seriously, the master is at it again, great execution. The plot gets a little convoluted, but boy everything else, the cinematography, the editing, the performances, make up, costumes, MUSIC, SOUND EFFECTS! It's awesome.

Ep 18 | Congo

Thu, 30 Jun 2022 23:00:00 -0400

Tonight, Matt and Laura somehow stumbled into the heart of the African jungle. Congo! Cue the drum beats and paper thin plot. It's a gem. A sparkly, time capsule that probably made a ton of money, but raises a few ethical concerns.

Ep 17 | This Is Spinal Tap

Thu, 23 Jun 2022 22:00:00 -0400

'ello! We sit down to watch the cult classic, This Is Spinal Tap. The grandfather of mockumentaries, the predecessor of the meme movie, the film that paved the way for Christopher Guest, Taika Waititi, and the Scary Movies. Because this movie is "such a fine line between stupid, and uh…clever."

Ep 16 | Kinky Boots

Thu, 16 Jun 2022 23:00:00 -0400

Matt and Laura turn up Pride Month with a screening of Kinky Boots, a movie about a drag queen who ... wait no, it's about a factory owner who needs to save his dad's company and find a new girlfriend with the help of his drag queen best friend. (We definitely ship Lola/Sarah-Jane <3)

Rated explicit for soft swearing.

Ep 15 | Minari

Mon, 06 Jun 2022 23:00:00 -0400

Tonight we sat down to watch Minari, a film about a Korean family that moves to Arkansas to farm vegetables. But it's so beautifully written with great characters, nothing but rave reviews on our end.

Ep 14 | We're Back: A Dinosaur Story

Sun, 05 Jun 2022 20:00:00 -0400

We're back! A Drinking Night with a Movie Problem Story! After a short hiatus, we watched the 1993 Spielberg dinosaur film to rival the 1993 Spielberg film ... Jurassic Park. The plot is weak, but the animation holds up! And we have a theory about New York animated movies in the 1990s. Cheers!

Ep 13 | How to Train Your Dragons

Mon, 09 May 2022 23:00:00 -0400

The trilogy of epic cuteness! It gets by on a LOT of charm, the first movie is pretty solid, the second has the skeleton of a great story, and the third is a bit confusing. But boy oh boy, do we love Toothless.

Ep 12 | The Flight of Dragons

Thu, 28 Apr 2022 22:00:00 -0400

Laura & Matt return to 1982, a time when nerds did *not* rule the cinematic universe, to see what a movie targeting nerd subculture looks like when nerd subculture really wasn't mainstream. Suffice to say there are reasons it wasn't.

Ep 11 | What Dreams May Come

Mon, 25 Apr 2022 23:00:00 -0400

Robin Williams part deux! After Good Morning Vietnam, and a bit of last week's The Lives of Others, we pivot to a poetic masterpiece with 90s special effects that hold up surprisingly well.

Ep 10 | The Lives of Others

Thu, 21 Apr 2022 23:00:00 -0400

Matt and Laura watch a guy watching a guy. The 2006 Best Foreign Film winner that explores the lives wrecked by the surveillance state of the German Democratic Republic (the eastern one). And spoiler, it's not just the artists who's lives are ruined.

Flagging for explicit because I say the F word a few times and we discuss a scene with quite, QUITE questionable consent.

Ep 9 | Only Yesterday

Tue, 19 Apr 2022 22:00:00 -0400

After last week's animated flik, we sit down to watch Studio Ghibli's 1991 "lost film," Only Yesterday. It's an earlier take on the concept of core memories with gorgeous backgrounds and uncanny smiles.

Ep 8 | A Bug's Life

Thu, 14 Apr 2022 22:00:00 -0400

Matt shocks Laura with the fact that he, after 24 years, has not seen A Bug's Life. But there's a simple solution! Ultimately a great movie, but does struggle with 2 different conflicts: Flik unable to fit in with the rest of the colony, and the ants of the colony versus the oppressive Hopper.

Spoilers for Seven Samurai. Thanks Matt.

Ep 7 | One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Tue, 12 Apr 2022 22:00:00 -0400

Adapted from Ken Kesey's classic novel, we watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The verdict? It's an exploration of order and chaos through maternal and paternal energies, and distilled through 1960s sex politics. So it's a little dated, but that's history!

Ep 6 | Fantastic Planet

Thu, 07 Apr 2022 23:00:00 -0400

Oh la la, we roll back to the 70s with this weirdly, wildly bizarre animated feature film about #coexistance.

Ep 5 | West Side Story (2021)

Tue, 05 Apr 2022 09:00:00 -0400

West Side Story. A 1960s perspective of 1950s racial violence remade in the 2020s. Did it work?

Note: this recording discusses the plot of the film which includes an attempted rape, and a sex scene.

Ep 4 | Good Morning Vietnam

Thu, 31 Mar 2022 22:00:00 -0400

Matt and Laura sit down to talk about the classic Robin Williams war flick.

Ep 3 | Rushmore

Mon, 28 Mar 2022 22:00:00 -0400

Laura & Matt bounce back from Willow with a Wes Anderson classic.

Ep 2 | Willow

Thu, 24 Mar 2022 23:00:00 -0400

We sit down to watch the classic 80s film, Willow. It made Matt sad. Laura remains obstinately optimistic.

Ep 1 | I Never Had Dreams of My Son

Sat, 19 Mar 2022 21:00:00 -0400

Matt and Laura sit down (actually stand up) to talk about Jason Blevins' short documentary, I Never Had Dreams of My Son, published by the New Yorker.