F This Movie!

10 Disaster Movies I Actually Like

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by Patrick Bromley
When the end of the world doesn't seem so bad.

It's Disaster day for Junesploitation! This is not my favorite genre. JB is your man for the disaster movies of the '70s, when these things were at their peak. Want to talk Daylight? Talk to Adam Riske. But just because there aren't a ton that I enjoy doesn't mean that there aren't any I enjoy. Here are 10 I dig.

1. Independence Day (1996, dir. Roland Emmerich)

A very traditional 1970s disaster movie that just happens to use aliens as the disaster. This is not the last time aliens will appear on this list, which means either a) I have a soft spot for sci-fi disaster movies or that b) aliens became an acceptable substitute for more natural disasters beginning in the 1990s. I know a lot of people really hate this movie but I just can't get on board with that. Any film that casts my beloved Bill Pullman as the President of the United States will forever have my sword.

2. Hard Rain (1998, dir. Mikael Salomon)

Originally titled The Flood, 1998's Hard Rain cleverly mashes up a 1970s disaster movie with a heist movie and a western. Christian Slater drives an armored car that gets held up as a small town succumbs to some HARD RAIN. A better-than-average cast for this sort of thing coupled with clean '90s direction make this a small gem in the pantheon of latter-period disaster movies. Nowadays it would go right to streaming. Hard Rain is further proof of Adam Riske's theory that no movie centered on an armored car is bad.

3. The Towering Inferno (1974, dir. John Guillermin)

The only traditional disaster movie from the genre's Golden Age to appear on this list. John Guillermin knows how to stage huge-scale action like this (he went on to direct the 1976 King Kong remake, a movie I like) and it's hard not to enjoy a movie in which Paul Newman and Steve McQueen share the screen. Also I like stuff being set on fire.

4. Armageddon (1998, dir. Michael Bay)

Another movie that gets a ton of hate and I get it. This is a lot of Michael Bay bullshit and there are a lot of cringe-worthy moments ("HARRY I LOVE YOU!"), but as I've said before and will say again, Armageddon is functional in a way that summer blockbusters rarely are anymore. Shit gets blown up. There are actual characters played by actors we like to see show up in movies. The world is at stake. This played the end of F This Movie Fest two years ago and that viewing proved to me that it still works. Sue me, I like it.

5. War of the Worlds (2005, dir. Steven Spielberg)

Another alien invasion movie that uses the language of a disaster film, particularly in its first half when everything descends into pure chaos and destruction. The reception was mixed when this came out; I feel like it will be getting some reevaluations in the coming weeks with Spielberg doing aliens again in Disclosure Day this summer. Of all the post-9/11 movies about 9/11, this remains one of the best.

6. Knowing (2009, dir. Alex Proyas)

Nicolas Cage plays a guy who unlocks a code and figures out the world is ending. A massive $200 million success at the time of its release, it's a movie no one has seen or talks about despite being pretty good. Obviously I love the Cage of it all, but Proyas really directs the shit out of the disaster sequences and the movie isn't afraid to go places other movies probably wouldn't go. Give it a chance if you've skipped it until now.

7. Cloverfield (2008, dir. Matt Reeves)

Ok, one more alien disaster movie. Cloverfield is clever in that it introduces the found footage aesthetic into the disaster movie. The novelty makes a huge difference, because there aren't really characters worth getting to know or care about. Don't get me wrong -- I still like the movie, but it's in spite of its flaws.

8. Titanic (1997, dir. James Cameron)

Another unpopular opinion: I like Titanic. I know it sounds stupid to say it's unpopular to like one of the most successful movies of all time and a Best Picture Oscar winner, but all the cool kids either turned on Titanic or, more accurately, never liked it in the first place. James Cameron combines the disaster movie with an old-fashioned romance, putting many human faces on the lives lost when Titanic sank. He knows how movies work.

9. Contagion (2011, dir. Steven Soderbergh)

I like Steven Soderbergh's outbreak movie but I might never watch it again. I wasn't sure I would ever watch it again even before COVID but now there's no way I can ever watch it again. It's a different kind of disaster movie, but a disaster nonetheless.

10. Melancholia (2011, dir. Lars von Trier)

No movie makes me feel better about depression than Lars Von Trier's Melancholia, a gorgeous (and often funny) mediation on what it feels like to live with potentially crippling mental illness that somehow prepares you for the end of the world. This is a disaster movie for the arthouse crowd, featuring a characteristically great Kirsten Dunst performance and some breathtaking photography. If a planet ever crashes into ours, I hope it looks this good.

Junesploitation 2026 Day 11: Disasters!

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 02:00:00 -0500

FTM 824: THE LAST BOY SCOUT

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0500

Water's wet. Patrick and Adam Riske have secrets.

Download this episode here.

Listen to F This Movie! on Apple Podcasts.

Also discussed this episode: Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971), Mercury Rising (1998), A Good Year (2006), Mortal Kombat II (2026), Poseidon (2006), Devil Wears Prada 2 (2026), Michael (2026), Propeller One Way Night Coach (2026), Obsession (2026), Over Your Dead Body (2026), Mile End Kicks (2026), Glory (1989), Four Brothers (2005)

Junesploitation 2026 Day 10: Private Eyes!

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 02:00:00 -0500

2K Replay: THE BLACK DAHLIA

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Tue, 9 Jun 2026 12:00:00 -0500

by Adam Riske

Nominated for “Best Cinematography” (Vilmos Zsigmond) at the Academy Awards. He lost to Guillermo Navarro for Pan’s Labyrinth.

• Best Scene/Moment: The two scenes where Josh Hartnett’s character visits the Hilary Swank character’s family. They’re demented even by Brian De Palma standards.

• Best Song: “In the Mood” written by Joe Garland.

• Best Merch: A “Black Dahlia Movie Film Ticket Stub Pepsi Logo Multiplex Opening Month 9/24/2006” for $17.50 (a great deal because it’s marked down 50% off from $35.00). I like the seller is bragging that the ticket stub has a Pepsi logo. They also bought the ticket at 9:42pm for a 9:25pm. What a creep. The movie might have already started by then. This isn’t 2026 when there are 30 minutes of previews. I also like the seller boasting about seeing it opening month as if seeing the movie 9 days after its release date is worth noting.

• Director Grade: The Black Dahlia was directed by Brian De Palma.
Great Movies: Phantom of the Paradise, Carrie, Blow Out, The Untouchables, Carlito’s Way
Good Movies: Sisters, Scarface, Casualties of War, Mission: Impossible, Snake Eyes
OK Movies: Dressed to Kill, Body Double, Raising Cain, Femme Fatale, The Black Dahlia
Bad Movies: The Bonfire of the Vanities, Passion
Unseen By Me: Murder a la Mod, Greetings, The Wedding Party, Hi, Mom!, Get to Know Your Rabbit, Obsession, The Fury, Home Movies, Wise Guys, Mission to Mars, Redacted, Domino
Overall Grade: B+

• Double It with This 2006 Movie: Lonely Hearts

• Year 2006 Movies to Trailer Before Them: Lucky Number Slevin, The Prestige, Scoop

• Ella McCay or The Black Dahlia? Ella McCay
• Mall Movie? I’m going to go yes because De Palma wasn’t as popular in the 2000s as he was back in the '70s, '80s and '90s. This movie’s pretty trashy so it would fit in nicely at the mall.

• Only in 2006: The subject matter of a movie made me feel guilty about my crush on Love, Lights, Hanukkah’s Mia Kirshner.

• Scene Stealer: Hilary Swank. She’s giving a femme fatale performance from outer space.

• I Miss: Major studio Brian De Palma movies through The Black Dahlia.

• I Don’t Miss: Non-major studio Brian De Palma movies after The Black Dahlia.

• 2006 Crush (tie): Scarlett Johansson and Love, Lights, Hanukkah’s Mia Kirshner.

• 2026 Crush (tie): Love, Lights, Hanukkah’s Mia Kirshner and Rachel Miner.

• What I Thought in 2006: I thought the movie was legitimately good for the first couple of acts only to lose its way completely in the final act and become very demented and silly. It was memorable, I’ll give it that.

• What I Think in 2026: I think pretty much the same thing. It’s probably more than a little insensitive for the victim of the real-life crime, but I guess it gets a pass since it happened decades ago, like the Titanic tragedy where people feel free to joke about it now. I dunno. It’s weird, right? Anyways, there are things I like about the movie (especially the stunning cinematography) and the trio of Josh Hartnett-Scarlett Johansson-Aaron Eckhart are charming. This is a very sleazy, silly movie and few people do that better than Brian De Palma. It’s not one of his best, but it’s entertaining most of the time and a little bit better than its reputation.

Drunk on Foolish Pleasures: TOUGH GUYS DON'T DANCE

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Tue, 9 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by JB

“Oh, man! Oh, God! Oh, man! Oh, God! Oh, man! Oh, God!
The perfect film for Junesploitation’s “Thriller Day.”

NOTE: This column originally appeared in slightly different form in 2013.

Now that it has been pointed out to me that the original 1972 Poseidon Adventure is actually pretty great, my favorite “bad” movie will forever be novelist/he-man Norman Mailer's 1987 crime dramedy/psycho-circus Tough Guys Don't Dance. This movie is incredibly entertaining to watch, and is as appropriate a movie as there will ever be for a column titled “Drunk on Foolish Pleasures” since most, if not all, of this film’s characters are sloppy drunk for the entire length of the movie. The screenwriter, director, and most of the actors may have also been drunk on set during filming, too. It certainly seems that way.

Just ask Norman Mailer. In his considered worldview, it is drinking makes you a man… so does fighting… and so does not being gay. Tough Guys Don’t Dance is the work of a man who has had one too many testosterone injections directly into his groin. This movie’s screenwriter seems to be every boy who ever bullied me in middle school, its producer is your least favorite uncle who brags about sexual conquests from thirty years ago, and its director seems to be a grouchy sociopath. All three men are Norman Mailer.

Tough Guys Don’t Dance was Norman Mailer’s first swing at directing a big-budget Hollywood film. Mailer managed to sweet talk beloved Cannon Films in the go-go 1980s into green-lighting this adaptation of his then-current bestseller. His maiden directing effort was the low-budget, self-financed Maidstone, which resulted in a shooting (not the shooting of film, mind you—someone was ACTUALLY SHOT on set during the film’s production. I am not making this up.)

THE PLOT IN BRIEF: Amateur yachtsman/professional alcoholic Tim Madden (Ryan O’Neal) awakens from a particularly nasty blackout and finds himself plunged into a tale of adultery and intrigue: bags full of weed, bags full of human heads, and himself, constantly half in the bag. Add more than a dash of scenery chewing from all sides and you get this sly parody of Harold Robbins/ Douglas Sirk-style melodramas. Right? I mean this has to be a sly parody, right? Please tell me this is a parody, served up with a sly nod and wink. You cannot tell me that the filmmakers took this piece of shit seriously.

Wait. What?

The character names dreamed up by Norman Mailer are all part of this revelry, a fever dream of cornpone and bourbon and racial stereotypes: Police Captain Alvin Luther Regency, Patty Laraine, Doogie Madden, Wardley Meeks III, Big Stoop, Spider, Bolo, Finney, and Stoodie. Those last four sound like some kind of low-rent, redneck Southern law firm (“Hello, this is Spider, Bolo, Finney & Stoodie. How may I direct your call? No, I’m sorry—Mr. Stoodie is at lunch with Mr. Spider and Mr. Bolo! Try calling back after two o’clock?”) You keep expecting to meet a character named "Grits" or "A. Southern Man." This is a film about the South written by someone who has never been south of Boston.

And speaking of Boston (Era.), Tough Guys Don’t Dance is just as bat shit crazy and melodramatic as star Ryan O’Neal’s earlier film Love Story, though one gets the feeling that, at least in the case of Tough Guys Don’t Dance, SOME of the filmmakers MAY have been in on the joke.

May have.

We have spoken at length on this site about films reaching a stage of crazy delirium. As film lovers we all eagerly await that exact moment where any movie goes completely off the tracks. We film fans have all seen so many “ordinary” movies that we crave the unique, the bizarre, the unexplainable. This film hits the crazy mark five minutes in—and never stops getting crazier! Give me more films like this during Junesploitation, full of insane bullshittery—at least this film never skimps on the passion, even though it is the passion of the religious zealot, the lapsed alcoholic, and the hopelessly insane. At least when Tough Guys Don’t Dance is over, you know that you have seen SOMETHING.

This film features the exploitation cast to end all exploitation casts: we get semi-professional somnambulist Ryan O’Neal (Oliver’s Story, The Main Event, Partners), Lawrence Tierney (Dillinger, Reservoir Dogs, Seinfeld), Wings Hauser (Vice Squad, Deadly Force, Sordid Career) Penn Jillette (My Chaffeur, Off Beat, Dancing With The Stars) and Debra Sandlund (Murder By Numbers, Parker Lewis Can’t Lose, Gladiator – no, not THAT Gladiator, the Cuba Gooding boxing movie Gladiator). This is a deep bench of deliciously bad character actors.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Tough Guys Don’t Dance does feature Isabella Rossellini, radiantly beautiful as ever—and just as bad and over-the-top as everyone else.

A popular urban legend that makes the rounds of my old school district concerns the district administrator whose daughter is prominently featured in this film. Papa was so proud of his daughter that he invited all of his coworkers to an advanced screening to celebrate her first big-budget, big screen outing. Seems Dad did NOT know in advance 1) what the hell kind of film this was, 2) what the hell kind of character his daughter would be playing, 3) what the hell kind of dialogue would issue from her mouth, or 4) the hella amounts of nudity involved in the part. Needless to say, Daddy was embarrassed, and a planned post-screening party was scuttled because all the guests were completely mortified by the film.

I think that Dad should have been LESS embarrassed by his daughter's copious nudity, (which is, shall we say, impressive?) and MORE embarrassed by her performance, which reaches some sort of apex of bad acting. At times the poor girl seems to be playing a sentient ape... playing a female impersonator... playing Bettie Davis... playing an uppity Southern Belle. This is a performance for the ages, a PERFORMANCE in all capital letters. Ladies and Gentlemen of the Academy... for your consideration… Debra Sandlund.

Further proof of just how confused and confusing her performance is? In 1987, Debra Sandlund was nominated for both Best Supporting Actress at the Independent Spirit Awards and for Worst Supporting Actress at the Razzie Awards. She lost both. Further further proof? She doesn’t work under the name Debra Sandlund anymore – all her subsequent acting credits are as “Debra Stipe.”

Tough Guys Don’t Dance also features dialogue that sounds like it was penned by a precocious fourteen-year-old boy high from huffing model glue – though it actually comes from the twisted mind of Norman Mailer. This nutty dialogue reaches its nadir in a scene where, after his character receives some very bad news, star Ryan O’Neal is called upon to repeat the words “Oh man! Oh God!” over and over again. This would be a test for the best of actors, and as we all know, Ryan O’Neal is far from the best. Apparently, this video clip and sound bite have become something of an Internet meme. Check it out:

Some other delightful dialogue that I delight in rolling over on my tongue:

LAURENCE TIERNEY: “Six months ago, they told me to stop [drinking] or I was dead. I stopped. Now the spirits circle around my bed and they tell me to dance. I tell them, ‘Tough guys don't dance.’ They answer me, ‘Keep dancing.’”

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: “My husband gives me six orgasms a night. That’s why I call him MISTER SIX!”

ODDLY ENOUGH: there were several versions of this scene filmed. In the trailer, Rossellini says “five.” Overseas, Hauser says “sixteen!” I once heard this bit of dialogue replaced on a network television broadcast with “Mister Three!” (Apparently, it wasn't the orgasms themselves the network objected to, but the sheer volume of them.) Later in the film, Rossellini corrects herself:

WINGS HAUSER: (slurring after a stroke) “But I gave you 16 orgashms a night!”
ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: “None of them were any good.”

LAURENCE TIERNEY: “Never call an Italian ‘small potatoes.’”

Actually, I can personally vouch for this one. You never want to call an Italian “small potatoes.” OH, DO NOT ASK WHY. JUST TRUST ME ON THIS ONE.

JOHN BEDFORD LLOYD (holding a gun on O’Neal’s character): “Madden, take it [he’s referring to his penis] in your mouth... or you'll die. Will you take my pride and joy [again, his penis] into your mouth?” To be fair here, Lloyd seems to be the only actor in this godforsaken mess who actually knows what sort of film he is in... and seems to be enjoying himself immensely.

The last line of dialogue illuminates the soul of Normal Mailer. Much like the films of Ed Wood (which Tough Guys Don’t Dance resembles in its dialogue and characters) the film is worth seeing for what it tells us about its creator. Norman Mailer is obsessed with being a man. He has an old school, “guts and glory” definition of masculinity that comes off as comic and excessive when splashed across the big screen. According to Mailer, men want only to drink, curse, and screw. They chop people’s heads off. They cuckhold other men. They black out and forget exactly whose heads they have chopped off and who they have cuckholded. They overact until they give themselves strokes and seizures. Their worst nightmare is to have someone put something in their mouths that they do not want to have there. That’s the only reason Wardley Meeks III is the villain—he is not a real man.

At times Tough Guys Don’t Dance resembles a fantasy “man’s man” film that I have often imagined. That film would star John Wayne, Mel Gibson, Steven Seagal, and a bottle of Viagara. That film would feature a script by Norman Mailer (with last-minute rewrites by John Milius and Joe Eszterhas) and be co-directed by John Ford, Sam Peckinpah, and Michael Bay. It would be titled Whiskey and Balls.

Oh man! Oh God!

Junesploitation 2026 Day 9: Thrillers!

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Tue, 9 Jun 2026 02:00:00 -0500

Watch Your Language: HOLY COW

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Mon, 8 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by Rosalie Lewis

Turns out, it ain’t easy being cheesy.

Growing up in rural Illinois, summer brought familiar sights and smells and events. Corn and soybeans got planted. Tractors puttered down the road, requiring cars to slow down and yield to their 15-mile-per-hour max speed. The familiar pungent odors of animal waste-based fertilizer permeated the air when the wind blew off the fields from a certain direction. Neighbors and friends with beef and dairy farms geared up for a series of county and state fairs where they would bring their cows, sheep, goats, pigs, and other livestock to a barn on the fairgrounds.

The fair meant a chance for kids and grownups to show the animals and hopefully win some trophies and ribbons that came with a bit of prize money and positive publicity for their farm. Kids I knew participated in 4-H from an early age, and teens would socialize (sometimes with some illicit alcohol, sometimes just running around looking at antique farm equipment and being goofballs) at night and retreat to the stall to catch a few hours of sleep before it was time to clean and prep their animals for inspection by a judge. During the day, tractor pulls and demolition derby competitions joined screeches from the Zipper and Tilt-a-Whirl, mechanical creaks from the Bumper Cars, and the weary but insistent invitations shouted by carnival barkers inviting passersby to try their luck at obviously rigged games in exchange for prizes like a giant Scooby Doo plushy or a wonky looking Ninja Turtle.

All of this to say, I immediately recognized the opening moments of Holy Cow even though it’s set in the French countryside and not the Midwestern US. A camera brings us into the gentle chaos and raucous atmosphere of a cattle show. People are drinking. Cows are milling around. Teenagers are chanting along with loud music, and our eyes focus on skinny blonde Totone as he feeds on the energy of his friends and strips down to his birthday suit, intoxicated as much by the cheers as the beers. When he wakes up later on the wooden bench of a bus stop, his dad lugs him into the passenger side of the milk truck and they drive through the pastoral countryside as the morning mists burn off with the rising sun. The beauty is punctuated by Dad asking, “Are you going to puke?” and rolling down a window. They seem to know this rhythm of early morning hangovers pretty well. There’s no judgment, just practicality.

In some ways, Totone is your average 18-year-old. He chases girls, parties with his friends, gets into fights, finds his Dad embarrassing at times. His life changes overnight when an accident leads to a lot more adult responsibilities. He now has to care for his seven-year-old sister Claire, find a way to earn money, and figure out how to wake up in time for work after a night of drinking heavily. After a few false starts and a friendly encounter with a local farm girl who seems to have her life figured out, he decides that the answer is obvious: Steal milk from hot farmer girl, convince friends to help, and make cheese good enough to win the coveted Comte award that comes with $30,000 in prize money. What could possibly go wrong?

I doubt that Totone ever read or considered French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, but I think he might agree with some of Sartre’s writings. “Life begins on the other side of despair. I suppose it is out of laziness that the world is the same day after day. Today it seemed to want to change. And then anything, anything could happen. There may be more beautiful times, but this one is ours.”

I adored this movie, which may be low stakes and easy-going but it’s still chock full of life and youthful energy. Louise Courvoisier writes and directs what she knows in her debut feature, having grown up in the Jura region where the film takes place. She intentionally cast local unprofessional actors, taking about a year to find the people who would come across as natural and real onscreen. The teens in this movie all worked on farms in the area, and she shot the movie around their schedule. She modified the dialogue to how they spoke. She didn’t want them to telegraph the emotional stakes of the story—it needed to feel organic and unpredictable. She also didn’t want to make an arthouse film that people from her home province would find alienating—it had to be more than just exoticizing the rural experience for a Paris audience.

As a result, we get so many unexpected joys in this movie. The cast absolutely feels like real people, and they have incredible chemistry together. They look like real teens and kids. They have that mix of awkwardness, false bravado, and vulnerability. The budding romance between Totone and Marie-Lise, his farmer girl crush, is tender and funny all at once. The movie isn’t trying to go for this big romantic story arc—it just lets these young adults figure themselves out together. Also, we learn a lot about the cheese making process and it’s fascinating! It definitely made me want to eat as much cheese as possible, which frankly is not a change of pace for me but still.

I also loved the musical moments in this movie—the standout songs being Jimmie Rodgers’ “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine” and “Pepas” by Puerto Rican artist Farruko. The seeming incongruousness between the genres and generations of these songs belies the contrast of a traditional way of life in the French farmland and the pull toward something more modern and cosmopolitan that the young people experience. At some point, they’ll have to decide if they want to stay and carry on the family business or if they’ll leave for the big city and pursue a life their parents and grandparents may not understand or approve of. For others, maybe it’s not so much a choice as an inevitability: Getting out requires resources and determination that not everyone can access.

Taste the joy and frustration of youth and artisanal dairy products in this lovely film. Louise Courvoisier has put together all the ingredients you need for a memorable time at the movies.

Holy Cow is rentable on most platforms and streaming for free in the US on Kanopy.

Junesploitation 2026 Day 8: Zombies!

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Mon, 8 Jun 2026 02:00:00 -0500

Junesploitation 2026 Day 7: Free Space!

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Sun, 7 Jun 2026 02:00:00 -0500

Junesploitation 2026 Day 6: South Korea!

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Sat, 6 Jun 2026 02:00:00 -0500

Review: MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Fri, 5 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by Rob DiCristino

Boys with toys.

While it’s seen more than a dozen permutations across a variety of multi-media platforms since Mattel released the first Masters of the Universe toys back in 1982, it’s fair to say that most fans of He-Man’s adventures in Eternia were introduced to the franchise with Filmation’s animated series, which was broadcast in weekday syndication from 1983 to 1985. Over 130 episodes, He-Man and his rotating lineup of colorful, fully-poseable allies faced off against the sinister Skeletor in an epic battle for the fate of the universe. Hoping to capitalize on the franchise’s popularity, the Cannon Group brought a live-action Masters of the Universe to the big screen in 1987, a film that — though a critical and commercial failure at the time — has been reappraised in some circles as a landmark in low-budget fantasy schlock. In fact, I’d venture a guess that most of you reading this right now remember He-Man and Masters of the Universe with warm nostalgia — it was a simpler time, an era (era) of possibility unmarred by the cruel, Skeletor-like yoke of adult responsibility.

And while I’m a bit too young to share in that nostalgia — I was born in 1986, just after He-Man’s heyday — Amazon MGM and director Travis Knight (CEO of animation giant Laika) have brought Eternia back to life again. The new Masters of the Universe begins as Adam (a winning Nicholas Galitzine) recounts his childhood in the faraway kingdom, which he was forced to flee after Skeletor (Jared Leto, blessedly masked) stole the throne from his father, King Randor (James Purefoy). Stranded on Earth for the last fifteen years, Adam has finally tracked down the Sword of Power, a legendary artifact that opens a path to home. Now, he’ll team up with his childhood friend, Teela (a game Camila Mendes), and her father, the Man-At-Arms (Idris Elba, still trapped in IP hell), to free Eternia from Skeletor and his sorceress (Alison Brie as Evil-Lyn) before their darkness consumes it forever. Along the way, he’ll discover the power of the Sword of Power and use the words of power to become the powerful…You know what? It’s He-Man. Big guy. Fights evil. You get it.

But does Amazon get it? Masters of the Universe certainly presents with enough credibility to satisfy the most ardent fans — each costume, weapon, and setting is pulled right from the source material, producing an unabashedly-cartoonish Filmation wonderland that would have been impossible to pull off back in the old Fox X-Men days — and Daniel Pemberton’s muscular score (with wailing guitars courtesy of Queen’s Brian May) is beefy enough to fill every loin cloth in the theater. Knight’s action setpieces are goofy and playful: Adam swings his signature sword with reckless abandon, while a supporting cast of minions and warriors — including Fisto (Jóhannes Jóhannesson), Ram-Man (Jon Xue Zhang), Karg (Hung Dante Dong) and Trap Jaw (Sam C. Wilson) — wields their Battle Accessories™ to satisfying effect. And while he never comes close to the theatrical bombast of Frank Langella’s 1987 performance, Jared Leto aims his Skeletor at the cheap seats, slicing off a few prime cuts of ham and bouncing off Brie’s cackling Evil-Lyn with ease.

But while there seems to have been no debate about how this Masters of the Universe should look and sound, the film’s six credited screenwriters must have been locked in their own mortal struggle about how it should feel. What begins as an earnest adventure story of heroes and villains quickly shifts gears into post-modern Marvel smarm, with winking asides made about nearly every Eternian oddity and character nickname (get ready for uncomfortable jokes about Fisto fisting his enemies, Ram-Man “giving them head,” and Battlecat being a “pussy”). Knight tries to balance this self-awareness with the pathos of James Gunn’s Guardians films and the metatextual wit of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie — undercooked Aesops about “inner vs. outer strength,” etc. — but ends up with an atonal cacophony that seems thoroughly embarrassed by the very fantasy world it’s created. Skeletor may have been a haughty megalomaniac in the old days, but he’s literally Dr. Evil now, with extended cringe bits and awkward pratfalls played for laughs at his expense.

And, look. There’s no sense in asking why Amazon would remake Masters of the Universe if they had no intention of handling the material seriously. The answer is the same as it was back in 1982: To sell toys. And that’s fine! These aren’t real characters, after all; they’re products, and no one’s asking for the Dark Knight of Masters of the Universe movies. These colorful, fully-articulated action figures demand little in the way of subtext — “Because he’s evil,” answers Teela when Adam tries to uncover a deeper meaning to Skeletor’s diabolical plans — and there are countless moments when Knight and his crew wisely forgo any dramatic nuance and, instead, see fit simply to smash their toys into each other at high speeds. There’s a clear understanding of and reverence for the source material here, and most of the (literal) sword-carrying MOTU devotees in my preview audience were howling with delight by the time the credits rolled. If you want nothing — and I mean absolutely nothing — more than that from Masters of the Universe, then you, my friend, have the power.

Masters of the Universe hits U.S. theaters on Friday, May 5th.

Junesploitation 2026 Day 5: Teenagers!

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Fri, 5 Jun 2026 02:00:00 -0500

Friday Night Double Features Vol. 67

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Thu, 4 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by Adam Riske and Patrick Bromley

Ten new double features to kick your summer off strong!

Double Feature 1:

Adam: #1: The Blues Brothers (1980)
Patrick: #2: The Stunt Man (1980)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Animalympics, Urban Cowboy, Up the Academy
Patrick: Theme: June 1980

Patrick: I guess with enough distance every month in the past becomes an amazing month. I’m not saying Up the Academy is amazing, but it does have Robert Downey Sr. adapting MAD magazine. I watched Animalympics about 200 times on cable as a kid. Urban Cowboy obviously rules and was very nearly the second feature I wanted to program, but then I saw that The Stunt Man was released the same month as The Blues Brothers and couldn’t resist pairing those two. I love the idea of watching a big, expensive Hollywood musical and then a movie that totally deconstructs the movie making process. I’ve never seen either movie on the big screen and I’m excited to see them together.

Adam: This sounds great. I don’t think I’ve seen The Blues Brothers in a theater either and this will be my first viewing of The Stunt Man. I miss when movies had legacies. Not to entirely knock current movies, but they really struggle with remaining resonant in subsequent years. I can’t wait to hear that Blues Brothers soundtrack on the Linderground speakers.

Double Feature 2:

Patrick: #1: The Fury (1978)
Adam: #2: The Entity (1982)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Fists of Fury, Mad Max: Fury Road, Iron Eagle, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
Adam: Theme: “The Fury. The Furie”

Adam: It’s sort of a nonsensical theme since these movies have nothing to do with Marlon Brando or Apocalypse Now but I nonsensical’d my way into pairing two movies that I think will play well together. Plus, The Fury is one of my unseen DePalmas and I’m becoming more of a Sidney J. Furie guy with each new movie of his I watch so I gotta keep that ball rolling. Are you a fan of these two movies?

Patrick: This is a pretty incredible double even beyond the title/theme because these movies would play really well together. The Entity is one of SJF’s best in large part thanks to the Barbara Hershey performance, but it can be a tough watch because it’s very ghost rapey. Like Ghostbusters but less hilarious. The Fury is one of the great underappreciated De Palma movies that lives on mostly because of its ending but there’s so much more to love than just that. It’s the movie that gave me my first crush on Amy Irving. I’ve never been able to see it in a theater, either, so this will be so cool.

Double Feature 3:
Adam: #1: The Housemaid (2025)
Patrick: #2: Chloe (2009)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Alpha Dog, Lovelace, Jennifer’s Body
Patrick: Theme: Trashy Seyfried

Patrick: Amanda Seyfried is quietly amassing a pretty amazing body of work. I like that she’s still willing to make trashy movies like The Housemaid even when she’s also making super respectable and audacious stuff like The Testament of Ann Lee. Before anyone gets angry or offended, please know that just because I say something is trashy doesn’t mean I think it’s bad; The Housemaid and Chloe and Jennifer’s Body are all “elevated” trash – movies that know exactly what they are and lean into what the audience wants and expects while simultaneously offering something deeper and more thoughtful.

Adam: Amanda Seyfried is great. I’m looking forward to this double so I can no longer be the only person who hasn’t seen The Housemaid. I remember Chloe being decent and kinda hot. It’s like Atom Egoyan was making up for the fact that Exotica wasn’t all that hot.

Double Feature 4:

Patrick: #1: Dragonslayer (1981)
Adam: #2: The Legend of Billie Jean (1985)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Corvette Summer, Batteries Not Included, Bingo
Adam: Theme: Matthew Robbins: The Whole Bloody Affair

Adam: I’ve never seen Dragonslayer or The Legend of Billie Jean so this might be my first choice for the month. I’m interested since I know they both have their fandom. Do you like them? It’s also cool to have a night dedicated to a director’s entire filmography. I think Batteries Not Included was the first sneak preview I ever saw in theaters and my Dad had to explain the concept of a sneak preview to me. P.S. I’m so happy Matthew Robbins made Bingo because now Rosalie, Andy, and I can talk about our beloved Bingo the entire night.

Patrick: I love it when we devote a FNDF to an uncelebrated filmmaker, so this has me very excited. I haven’t seen The Legend of Billie Jean in years so I can’t remember if I like it or not, but that Pat Benatar song is a real banger. I’m a big Dragonslayer fan; it’s one of the best of all the ‘80s fantasy films and has the best dragon ever put on screen. Matthew Robbins filmography makes no sense to me. I really wanted to see *batteries not included as a kid because of the Spielberg connection but even back then I didn’t much like it and I’ve never actually seen Bingo. Please don’t tell Rosalie and Andy. I need them to keep respecting me.

Double Feature 5:
Adam: #1: Friday (1995)
Patrick: #2: CB4 (1993)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood, How High, Fear of a Black Hat, Pootie Tang
Patrick: Theme: Hood Comedies

Patrick: I thought about pairing Friday with How High and passing out joints at the Cinemarink, but seeing as I’ve never tried weed before I don’t think now is the time to start. Do I need to rewatch How High? E and I saw it in theaters, and I remember laughing a lot when they smoke the corpse of John Quincy Adams or something but nothing else. I decided instead to double Friday – a movie I liked more until I had to see Ice Cube writing it in Straight Outta Compton – with CB4, a somewhat underrated ‘90s Universal comedy (only you get what this means) about the gangster rap scene. I think this would be a really fun night at the movies.

Adam: I saw How High once and don’t remember much about it other than a couple of jokes that were really funny. The guys in my fraternity liked it for what it’s worth. This is a great pairing. Friday is one of my favorite ‘90s comedies. It’s a great hangout movie and different jokes get me each viewing (“What the hell you stealing boxes for? You trying to build a clubhouse?”). I’m of the opinion that CB4 is better than Fear of a Black Hat. Am I crazy? That might be because I’ve seen the former maybe 10 times and the latter only once. Wacky D’s in the house!

Double Feature 6:

Patrick: #1: Cruising (1980)
Adam: #2: Author! Author! (1982)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Scarface, Revolution, Sea of Love
Adam: Theme: '80s Al Pacino

Adam: I went with '80s Al Pacino as a theme because he made relatively few movies during that decade and it was a weird time for him. I’ve seen Cruising a couple of times and it’s one of the more unsettling movies I can remember seeing even if it doesn’t connect all the way story wise (to me at least). Following it up with Author! Author! was intentional because that movie is pitched like a sitcom (how will Al Pacino raise all these kids!???) and will allow the audience to decompress after the intensity of Cruising.

Patrick: OMG the Pacino whiplash we are going to get. There are some days where I might call Cruising my favorite Friedkin even though I know it’s not; it’s just one that I revisit a lot because I love the early ‘80s NY sleazcore vibes and that ZZ Top song kicks so much ass. Pacino’s ‘80s were so nuts. Did you ever see Revolution? I haven’t but kind of need to. I know he was semi-retired during the decade, but why did he come out to make stuff like that and Author! Author!?

Adam: Revolution is one of the few Pacinos I have yet to see. I think that was the movie that made him semi-retire and not come back until Diane Keaton forced him to make Sea of Love.

Double Feature 7:
Adam: #1: Grease (1978)
Patrick: #2: Hairspray (1987)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Can’t Buy Me Love, Cocktail, Bird on a Wire
Patrick: Theme: Erika Night

Patrick: Sometimes you just want to devote an entire night to movies your wife loves more than anyone else. I like most of them (never Cocktail), but they will always belong to her.

Adam: I love it! I like that I’ve known you two long enough to immediately associate most of these movies with Erika’s love of them. I need to revisit Hairspray. I haven’t seen it since cable in the ‘80s where I remember being afraid of it because I found out Divine passed away and for some reason, I thought that made the movie scary. We need to play the Cocktail soundtrack as part of the pre-show. For goodness sake, let’s give the Cinemarink the hippie hippie shakes. P.S. Do I need to see Bird on a Wire? I used to like that poster. It popped whenever you’d see it as an ad in Premiere Magazine.

Patrick: You should totally see Bird on a Wire. It’s a fine movie that becomes a three-star banger in hindsight. Plus, it’s 1990 Universal and that shit just hits different.

Double Feature 8:

Patrick: #1: Hook (1991)
Adam: #2: The Fisher King (1991)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: The Doors, Hudson Hawk, Terminator 2: Judgement Day
Adam: Theme: Tri-Star 1991

Adam: I credit studios like early '90s Tri-Star for being gateways for me as a kid to watching movies made for grown-ups. For example, Terminator 2 was the first R-rated movie I ever saw in a theater and when I saw the preview for The Doors where Val Kilmer is all “Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin…” I was fully ready at 8 years old to be walked through the doorway of my own oblivion. Hook is a movie that’s kind of a joke in my family because I got food poisoning before we saw it on Christmas Day 1991 and I spent most of the movie and after the movie throwing up all over The Catlow theater. Good times. I’m a Hook guy. I actually like it more as an adult than I did as a kid. Back then I sort of needed to will my way into liking it, but I saw it a few years ago in 70mm at the Music Box and was connecting to the Robin Williams arc a bit. I paired Hook with The Fisher King because it’s a Williams movie I own and have meant to see forever but have never watched.

Patrick: I’m much more of a Fisher King guy than a Hook guy (as has been well established) so I’m excited that we have, as La Bianda says, one for you, one for me. I keep waiting for my magic viewing of Hook, but it hasn’t happened yet. I’m sure a 70mm Music Box screening would help so hopefully they do it again. It’s so weird how much I like Robin Williams as an actor when he made so many bad movies (these are not them) and never really makes me laugh despite being a mostly comic performer. I will watch him in just about anything. The Fisher King is one of his best.

Double Feature 9:
Adam: #1: The Princess Diaries (2001)
Patrick: #2: Purple Rain (1984)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: The Princess Bride, “Kiss” music video, Graffiti Bridge
Patrick: Theme: Princes and Princesses

Patrick: This was a tough one so I hope our audience will go with us on it. I don’t think I’ve seen The Princess Diaries since a sneak preview in 2001 (I never saw the sequel either) so I had to zag and take a different direction. There’s never a bad time to watch Purple Rain, and you can definitely introduce the movie and tell the Cinemarink about the words the movie taught you.

Adam: Lol. I just revisited Purple Rain over the weekend on my smoky, snap case DVD just as everyone should. It’s like vinyl. The last concert in Purple Rain might be some of the best cinema ever put on film. It’s incredible. I’m also (as you already know) a huge Princess Diaries guy so this evening is all nutmeg to me. I like the theme a lot too. Do I need to see Graffiti Bridge? I’ve been tempted but never took the dive.

Patrick: I’ve never seen Graffiti Bridge or any Prince movie outside of Purple Rain. Our Cinemarink speakers are really getting a workout this month, and I am here for it.

Double Feature 10:

Patrick: #1: Far and Away (1992)
Adam: #2: The Age of Innocence (1993)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: L.A. Story, Sweet November, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), Enya music video block
Adam: Theme: Enya Music

Adam: I programmed this evening not as an Enya fan (I’m not a detractor either for the record) but because she’s had songs in a lot of movies. Her song in Far and Away is pretty badass. It’ll get you through the last three pumps when you’re bench pressing. I’ve seen Far and Away maybe three times, and it never clicked for me but the promise of being in the company of Cruise and Kidman is enough to keep going back to it. I’m also using this as an excuse to revisit The Age of Innocence, which I’ve only seen once and probably should have liked more than I did. I really wanted to like it because of the cast and Scorsese of course.

Patrick: I love this. She should come play live. I need to rewatch Far and Away, so I programmed it here because I don’t remember loving it but regret not seeing it in 70mm when it played at Woodfield 1&2 because it was one of the last movies that ever did. I only recently saw The Age of Innocence and was pretty knocked out by it despite it not being my thing. That Scorsese is pretty good.

Junesploitation 2026 Day 4: Blaxploitation!

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Thu, 4 Jun 2026 02:00:00 -0500

FTM 823: EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Wed, 3 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0500

Patrick and JB will lead you to Pazuzu. (Note: The levels on this episode are messed up and we apologize for the inconsistent sound. We promise to do better next week.)

Download this episode here.

Listen to F This Movie! on Apple Podcasts.

Also discussed this episode: Fantasy Life (2026), I Love Boosters (2026), Backrooms (2026), Obsession (2026)

Junesploitation 2026 Day 3: Linda Blair!

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Wed, 3 Jun 2026 02:00:00 -0500

Fifty Before '50: ALICE IN WONDERLAND

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Tue, 2 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by JB

One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small...

In 1951, Walt Disney Studios released Alice in Wonderland, a film that had been kicking around the studio for the better part of thirteen years. The studio had high hopes for its success. Certainly, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio had proved that beloved children’s book + Disney magic = box office bonanzas.

THE PLOT IN BRIEF: Alice and her sister spend some time together by a tree. Alice is not interested in her sister’s history lesson and begins to daydream. She chases a passing White Rabbit and plummets down a hole. After ingesting magical cookies and mysterious liquids, she ends up in Wonderland and meets twins Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the Dodo, a hookah-smoking caterpillar, and the Cheshire Cat. She ends up at a Mad Tea Party, attended by the March Hare, the Mad Hatter, the Dormouse, and (briefly) the White Rabbit. The Cheshire Cat directs Alice to the Castle of the Red Queen, and Alice quickly runs afoul of her. The Red Queen orders Alice brutally executed. Except for the fact that many of these characters are anthropomorphic animals, how on earth is this a film for children?

MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT: It’s all a dream. So there.

Alice in Wonderland was the rare animated film that was not a hit for the Walt Disney Studio upon its original release. I would humbly suggest that any or all of the following might be reasons for its relative failure:

1. Lewis Carroll’s particular brand of whimsey and fantasy does not match Walt Disney’s particular brand whimsey and fantasy; it’s like oil and water.

2. The film has a protagonist who is unsympathetic and weak; she is acted upon more than active, and her actions largely consist of eating biscuits and delivering stern, humorless lectures. Critic Miyako Pleines wrote, "Unlike the other Disney princesses before her, Alice seemed to have no real purpose (even if that purpose is simply to be a damsel in distress). People saw her as lacking ambition and drive, a lazy girl who daydreamed during her studies and wandered into a magical world.”

3. The film is full of songs (16!) but only a single memorable one: “A Very Merry Un-Birthday.”

4. The film has too many characters (Eighteen, by my count) and a plot that consists of “and then she went here... and then she went here... and then she went here.”

5. With the exceptions of Ed Wynn as the Mad Hatter and Bill Thomas as the White Rabbit, the voice cast is uninteresting and interchangeable.

6. Structurally, the film is very much like The Wizard of Oz, but here the ending feels like a cheat because Alice has not forged any kind of relationship with any of the other characters.

7. Some of the material presented is quite “Un-Disneylike:” During “The Walrus and the Carpenter” segment, oysters are presented as little babies in diapers and bonnets... and (SPOILER ALERT) the Walrus eats them. As Goofy might say, “Garsh!”

8. Some of the character design and direction is a tad creepy; I could see little children in the early 1950s being frightened by this film.

9. In spite of all I've mentioned above, this version of Alice in Wonderland still manages to be quite boring.

Post-World War II, Disney released several compendium films—Make Mine Music (1946), Fun and Fancy Free (1947), and Melody Time (1948)—that were little more than collections of shorts. If these “feature films” failed, Disney planned to release the shorts separately. That was not the release strategy with Alice, but you can see how the anthology films' strategy of using different teams of animators for each segment “trickled down” to Alice, assigning various teams to work on segments where the only common element is Alice herself. (This is a very episodic film. Other episodes from the book were planned for, but later cut from, Alice in Wonderland: the Jabberwocky, the White Knight, the Duchess, the Mock Turtle, Humpty Dumpty, and the Gryphon all “hit the studio floor” before final animation began.)

I’m sure this “teams” approach saved production time. Hand-drawn animation is very expensive to produce. What’s lost is any kind of narrative cohesion between the segments. Animator Ward Kimball thought the film "...suffered from too many cooks—directors. Here was a case of [nine] directors each trying to top the other guy and make his sequence the biggest and craziest in the show. This had a self-canceling effect on the final product."

Why is this an ideal cartoon to watch today for Junesploitation? Because after a few years had passed, a random bean counter at the Disney Studios noticed that this film was doing big business in the 16mm rental market on college campuses.

Hmmmmmm. The 1960s. College campuses. Alice in Wonderland.

Disney Studios pulled the film from 16mm rental, and mounted a nation-wide theatrical re-release with a new trippy ad campaign. Disney Studios exploited itself. Don’t believe me? Go ask Alice... when she was just small.

NOTE: Three weeks ago, on May 5, Alice in Wonderland was released in 4K Blu-ray to celebrate the film's 75th anniversary. The Disney restoration team spent nine months on a digital scan of the original nitrate negative. The Walt Disney Animation Research Library collaborated with Walt Disney Animation Studios to ensure the restoration remained true to the animators' original intent and color palate. This is a terrific-looking disc and the two teams finally put the colors back to the way they were in 1951; it is highly recommended for that reason alone.

Junesploitation 2026 Day 2: Cartoons!

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Tue, 2 Jun 2026 02:00:00 -0500

Thrill Seeker: GUILTY AS SIN

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Mon, 1 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by Sonia Mansfield

Sonia puts on the world’s biggest scrunchie and heads into court.

Guilty As Sin
Starring Rebecca De Mornay, Don Johnson, Stephan Lang, and Jack Warden
Written by Larry Cohen
Directed by Sidney Lumet?!
Rated R for violence, language, really big scrunchies, and some sexuality
Tagline: She's finally met her match. He's handsome, wealthy, seductive. A Real Lady Killer.

Welcome to Thrill Seeker, in which I watch thrillers from the '80s and '90s. This month, I watched 1993’s Guilty As Sin, starring Rebecca De Mornay and Don Johnson.

I decided to move this one up the list because it stars Rebecca De Mornay, who, between Guilty As Sin, The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, and Never Talk To Strangers, was the Ashley Judd of early '90s thrillers. (Ashley Judd was the Ashley Judd of late-'90s thrillers.)

And then I realized that Guilty As Sin is directed by Sidney Lumet. Whaaaa? Serpico (1973), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Network (1976), Prince of the City (1981), and The Verdict (1982): You know, real garbage. Guilty As Sin is a glossy Hollywood thriller. It’s not really his style, but by 1993 his career had hit an, ummm, quieter stretch.

I saw this in the theater when it came out. I was working at the theater at the time, which meant I got to see it for free, and of course, I brought my mom, because it had Don Johnson in it. All moms loved Don Johnson back then. It’s a psychological condition known as the Miami vice. There are certain actors that moms of a certain age love: Don Johnson, Tom Selleck, and Mark Harmon.

OK, let’s run through the plot, no spoilers.

The plot: Rebecca De Mornay plays Jennifer Haines, and like so many characters in these thrillers, she’s a big-time Chicago defense attorney. The movie opens with her in court, getting some mobster acquitted, because she’s just that good. And there in the courtroom is Don Johnson.

“Your biggest fan is back. He’s gorgeous, and he can’t keep his eyes off you,” Jennifer’s assistant ~~explains to viewers~~ tells her.

Jennifer celebrates her big win by rushing into her boyfriend’s office, stripping off her legal briefs, and … cut to them eating Chinese food. Did I mention that the boyfriend is a curly-haired Stephen Lang with a porn stache? I kinda think the movie is worth it just for that.

The next day, Jennifer’s biggest fan strolls into her office without an appointment. Rude.

Don Johnson plays David Greenhill, a handsome man accused of pushing his wealthy wife out a high-rise window and making it look like a suicide. We know he’s handsome because everyone tells us repeatedly throughout the movie. I actually double-checked to see if Don Johnson has a cowriting credit on this movie. He doesn’t.

We’re also repeatedly told that he’s charming, but the movie never shows us that. David tells Jennifer that he doesn’t have a job. He just lives off rich women and cheats on them. If this movie were remade now, David would be a podcaster in the manosphere.

She hears all that and thinks, “Yeah, he’s innocent. I’m gonna help him.”

In the first few days after taking the case, Jennifer realizes she’s made a big mistake. The dude flakes on the legal bills, harasses Stephen Lang, starts insinuating to people that they’re having an affair, and makes a sandwich in front of her in a threatening manner.

Jennifer gets her private investigator/father figure, Jack Warden, to do some digging, and well, David has a history of dating older women who disappear or die. You don’t say.

David knows that she knows the truth, but he doesn’t care. It makes it clear that he’s going to take full advantage of the whole attorney-client privilege thing.

Finally, Jennifer is like, “Fuck this shit,” and tries to quit, but the judge is like, “You broke it. You bought it,” and won’t let her resign from the case.

So, she puts on the world’s biggest scrunchie and heads into court. Seriously, look at that thing.

And here’s where my plot summary ends, thrill seekers. Just know there’s another murder, monologuing, and (my favorite) a bat shit ending.

Is it a thrill? Sadly, no. Guilty As Sin wants to be trashy fun, but that’s not Lumet’s style. The movie plays it too straight. It’s not until the end that it gets over the top, and that’s when you get just a little taste of what it could’ve been all along.

The movie is written by Larry Cohen, best known for low-budget genre films, but he also worked as a screenwriter-for-hire. This is obviously one of those jobs.

Johnson is fine in the movie. His character is supposedly so charming that women can’t help but want to support him, but we never see that. Instead, he’s just a handsome creep. Since we never see that side, the performance feels a little one-note.

But De Mornay is terrific. A year earlier, she was doing the menacing in The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, and she’s really good at being menaced here. I don’t think we appreciated her enough back in the day. She always commits, and she’s so good even in movies that don’t deserve her.

Rating: I really wanted to love this movie, but instead I’m giving it 2 bunnies in a boiling pot out of 5.

I want to hear from y’all. What '80s-'90s thrillers do you love? What should I cover next? I love requests.

Junesploitation 2026 Day 1: '90s Action!

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Mon, 1 Jun 2026 02:00:00 -0500

Weekend Open Thread

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Sat, 30 May 2026 02:00:00 -0500

Review: MISS YOU, LOVE YOU

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Fri, 29 May 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by Rob DiCristino

Light up the summer blockbuster season with a two-handed chamber drama!

Among 2024’s many underdiscussed gems was Hard Truths, the brutal and uncompromising character study from English auteur Mike Leigh and one of his most celebrated collaborators, Marianne Jean-Baptiste. In what should have been an awards-sweeping performance, Jean-Baptiste plays Pansy, a surly and bitter wretch of a woman whose anger masks a deep sadness that only love — specifically, the love of her sister (Michele Austin as Chantelle) — can overcome. Leigh’s intimate presentation makes Hard Truths a compelling watch, but it’s the universality of Pansy’s journey that really makes it memorable: At one point or another, we’ve all hidden wounds behind resentment and rage. We’ve all withheld truths from those with the power to make us pay for them. We’ve all succumbed to doubt and insecurity. But the more unbearable Pansy’s behavior gets — and if you haven’t seen Hard Truths, then you haven’t seen just how repugnant a human being can be — the more we see the desperation and misery behind all of her fury.

Written and directed by Jim Rash — whom I got to know as the flamboyant Dean Pelton on Community before he won an Oscar for co-writing Alexander Payne’s The Descendents — the new HBO film Miss You, Love You plays in a similar realm. Just days after the unexpected death of her beloved husband, Henry, the hardheaded and irascible Diane (Allison Janney) hears a knock on the door: It’s Jamie (Andrew Rannells), who says he’s an assistant to her son, Tyler, and that he’s here to help her with Henry’s funeral arrangements while Tyler researches a new novel in some faraway land. He’s stuck there for safety reasons — or at least, that’s what Tyler would have Diane believe — and Jamie is here to guide Diane through this difficult time in his stead. Diane isn’t thrilled to welcome this substitute son, however, and she has absolutely no compunction about letting him know it. But as the preparations progress, both Diane and Jamie will confront a few shared animosities that — you’ll never believe this— reveal them to be far more alike than they initially thought.

An elegantly-staged two-hander set in an arid New Mexican desert community, Miss You, Love You is driven by the stifling weight of absence: Both Henry and Tyler are frequently spoken of but never seen in person — Henry appears in photos and voicemails, while Tyler exists only as a series of urgent chirps on Jamie’s phone — leaving Diane and Jamie to dump all kinds of displaced resentment onto each other, instead. Diane’s angry at Henry for dying, for example, for leaving her stranded in an adobe rancher when she’d rather be in a Manhattan penthouse. She’s angry at Tyler for never calling her, for using old family feuds as an excuse to keep her at a distance. And Jamie? Well, he’s just here to do his job, right? Or is he an overeager people-pleaser who hopes that handling Diane will help Tyler see Jamie the way he wants to be seen — he can’t let go of an unrealized romance between them — and force Tyler to admit that he was wrong to let him go? These recriminations quickly pile up, bonding Diane and Jamie in a mutual discontent that they can no longer ignore.

Rash’s screenplay is the kind of three-course meal that actors like West Wing alum Allison Janney and Broadway favorite Andrew Rannells chow down on with ease, but it’s the unlikely physical chemistry between them that saves Miss You, Love You from its writing whenever the sheer tonnage of dialogue — each actor has a handful of wordy, impassioned outbursts that seem to go on for ages — starts to feel too studied and exact to have come from real live human beings. It’s especially effective given the confines of the setting: Janney’s trademark imperiousness and statuesque height should reduce the more mild-mannered Rannells to a puddle on the kitchen floor, but watching Jamie hold close-ups, find his footing, and push back with hooks and jabs of his own is one of the film’s great joys. For as clumsy and overwrought as things become in the third act — Rash eventually loses patience with dramatic conceits and starts shouting his characters’ emotional subtext from the rooftops — Janney and Rannells sell the histrionics like pros.

At its best, Miss You, Love You gives its grieving leads an opportunity to test drive the conversations they might one day have with their shared tormentor, especially once they realize that their brief co-habitance is low-stakes enough that they have nothing to lose by being honest with each other. Plus, getting live feedback from someone who understands what you’re going through is a lot better than practicing self-righteous takedowns to yourself in the bathroom mirror, isn’t it? Jim Rash should also get some credit for avoiding easy cliches and neat thematic shortcuts: A worse movie might have Jamie win Diane over enough that she encourages him to go after Tyler (spoilers: she does just the opposite), or have Diane admit that all her passive-aggression is just a refusal to deal with the fact that Tyler doesn’t depend on her anymore (spoilers: it isn’t). Real life is more nuanced than that, and Miss You, Love You doesn’t pretend to have all the answers. It does help us see ourselves a little better, though, and sometimes that’s all it takes for the real healing to begin.

Miss You, Love You hits HBO on Friday, May 29th.

2K Replay: THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Thu, 28 May 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by Adam Riske

Nominated for “Choice Summer Movie: Drama/Action-Adventure” at the Teen Choice Awards. It lost to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.

• Best Scene/Moment (tie): The chase through Tokyo that ends with Han (Sung Kang) crashing and Dominic Torreto's (Vin Diesel) cameo at the end.

• Best Song (tie): “Conteo” by Don Omar and “She Wants to Move” by N.E.R.D.

• Best Merch: An “Affliction Fast and Furious Bodysuit Leotard Tokyo Drift Black White XS” for $20.00. With any luck, this will be your partner’s wardrobe of choice on your wedding night. Bonus points for the eBay seller being named rowdydowdycoyootie.

• Director Grade: The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift was directed by Justin Lin.
Great Movies: Fast Five
Good Movies: Better Luck Tomorrow, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Fast & Furious, Fast and Furious 6, Star Trek Beyond
OK Movies: Annapolis, F9
Bad Movies: N/A
Unseen By Me: Shopping for Fangs, Finishing the Game, Last Days
Overall Grade: B

• Double It with This 2006 Movie: Cars

• Year 2006 Movies to Trailer Before Them: Annapolis, Find Me Guilty, Running Scared

• Ella McCay or The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift? The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
• Mall Movie? 100 percent. This movie has an arcade game. You could go straight from the cinema to the arcade afterwards.

• Only in 2006: A movie about drifting.

• Scene Stealer: Sung Kang, who's still cool in this movie despite how uncool the most recent Fast movies made him. Honorable Mention: Bow Wow who brings a certain gravitas to his role as…Twink.

• I Miss: Casual, breezy, not overly stuffed Fast and the Furious movies.

• I Don’t Miss: Movies trying to pump you up with Kid Rock's “Bawitdaba.”

• 2006 Crush (tie): Nikki Griffin and Keiko Kitagawa.

• 2026 Crush (tie): Lynda Boyd and Keiko Kitagawa.

• What I Thought in 2006: I sort of checked out on the franchise after the original and didn’t catch up with Tokyo Drift until it hit DVD. I remember thinking it was better than I expected and would have classified it as a guilty pleasure back then.

• What I Think in 2026: I go back and forth between liking and really liking Tokyo Drift. The first hour is super fun and energetic but the second hour when the plot (namely the Yakuza stuff) kicks in is a little sluggish. Overall, I like that the movie embraces being about a very specific subculture of car racing and Tokyo is so photogenic that I enjoy going back to this one just for the travelogue aspect of it all.

FTM 822: THE MANDALORIAN & GROGU & THE YEAR SO FAR (2026)

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Wed, 27 May 2026 05:00:00 -0500

Kick off summer with Patrick and JB.

Download this episode here.

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