F This Movie!

10 Underrated Legacy Sequels

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by Patrick Bromley

When Going Back to the Well isn't always such a bad thing.

Legacy sequels have become so commonplace in our current cinematic ecosystem that it's easy to forget that they don't all exist to nakedly cash in on our IP nostalgia. There have been some really good ones over the years! Here are 10 of them.

1. Psycho II (1983, dir. Richard Franklin)

Talk about a movie that probably shouldn't exist. There is nothing in Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 masterpiece that suggests there's more story to be told, and trying to sequelize one of the greatest horror movies ever made by one of the greatest to ever do it really seems like a fool's errand. Credit to director Richard Franklin and screenwriter Tom Holland, then, for making a sequel that, one some days, I'd sooner put on than the original. Picking up 20 years after the events of the first movie, the sequel dives deep into Norman Bates' psychology as he tries to cope with the things he's done and live with his illness. It's fascinating and Anthony Perkins gives a tour de force performance returning to the role that would more or less define his career. There's some stupid '80s shit in here like a higher body count and more graphic violence -- as well as an attempt to add a new twist that really, really does not work -- but for nearly all of its running time, Psycho II is a kind of miracle movie.

2. Texasville (1990, dir. Peter Bogdanovich)

Revisiting the characters of The Last Picture Show 30 years into adulthood probably seemed like a bad idea when Texasville was released in 1990, but it at least it wasn't Peter Bogdanovich's bad idea. Credit goes to the original author, Larry McMurtry, on whose sequel novel his own screenplay is based. Most of the cast members return for what was an early version of what is considered a "legacy sequel," which picks up more than 30 years after the events of the first film. The whole thing feels broader than its predecessor -- a product of its time, no doubt -- but it's also more cheerful and upbeat, too, a victory lap celebration of these characters that also manages to find things to say about aging, love, loss, and legacy.

3. Escape from L.A. (1996, dir. John Carpenter)

Every time John Carpenter comes up on the podcast or in writing, I mention that I'm always trying to figure out what the next great discovery in his filmography will be among fans. It's happened with nearly every one of his movies that underperformed and possibly even received bad reviews at the time but then went on to be considered a genre classic: The Thing, Prince of Darkness, In the Mouth of Madness, the list goes on. I'm kind of hoping it will be Escape from L.A., his 1996 legacy sequel to Escape from New York and a film of which I've been a fan since seeing it opening night. I get that it's over the top and a little silly. So is Los Angeles. Carpenter leans much more heavily into comedy for this follow-up, which once again finds Snake Plissken dispatched to an American city on a suicide mission to rescue someone (or something) important. Like New York, it's episodic and introduces a colorful cast of supporting characters, not all of whom hold up super well (looking at you, Carjack Malaone), but it's funnier and ultimately even darker than its predecessor, boasting one of the great endings of the 1990s. Welcome to the human race indeed.

4. The Two Jakes (1990, dir. Jack Nicholson)

More than any other title, this is the movie that inspired this list. I've always found The Two Jakes to be a worthy follow-up to Roman Polanski's Chinatown -- not as good, but worthy -- but I also know I'm in a minority in this opinion. Robert Towne was originally going to direct this follow-up (with Nicholson reprising his role as detective Jake Gittes and former Paramount head Robert Evans playing the other Jake) but a long and trouble production history stretching over a decade eventually led to Nicholson stepping into the director's chair for the version we got. It's good! Sure, the mystery is a little convoluted, but so is the one in Chinatown. I'm a sucker for a private detective, and if that private detective is played by one of the best to ever do it, I'm pretty much onboard. Plus, Hot Stowe!

5. 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984, dir. Peter Hyams)

My beloved Peter Hyams finally scored his first big box office hit with this sequel to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey -- on paper, yet another impossible proposition -- working closely with Arthur C. Clarke to adapt his 1982 novel 2010. This is much more a direct sequel than I ever realized, more Blade Runner 2049 than the in-name-only movie I was expecting. 2010 manages to be faithful and respectful to the Kubrick film while still functioning as its own thing. This is thoughtful, adult science fiction that stands out among the glut of genre movies crowding theaters in the first half of the 1980s and, divorced of the expectations from when it came out, can be appreciated as a worthy sequel and one of Hyams' strongest efforts. It's not the Kubrick film, but what can be?

6. Phantasm: Ravager (2016, dir. David Hartman)

Ok, hear me out. I know Ravager has its flaws and an argument could be made that it's the weakest of the Phantasm series. I give it so much credit, though, for having something on its mind more than just keeping a phranchise alive. This is a messy, low-budget movie with at-times questionable visual effects, but it's also commenting on the End of Things and how we approach death. It's rare for a movie this deep into a long-running horror series to have this strong of an emotional core, but it's a testament to our relationship to these characters (and the actors who have played them in almost every entry, save for Phantasm 2's bit of temporary recasting) that the finale of this sequel is genuinely moving.

7. Blues Brothers 2000 (1998, dir. John Landis)

I know that this will be an unpopular pick because the movie and its director are pretty widely hated amidst the online Movie Discourse. And while I won't defend John Landis' actions or his humanity and while I won't argue that Blues Brothers 2000 is as good a movie as the original Blues Brothers, I do think it's much better than its reputation would suggest. Yes, the absence of the late John Belushi is felt (the filmmakers replace him with not one but three separate characters: John Goodman, Joe Morton, and a kid) and yes there are times when it feels like everyone involved is attempting to reheat a souffle, but I still think 2000 works ok as a big musical. Because I'm not especially precious about the original Blues Brothers (sorry, JB, I swear I like it), I can still enjoy myself and the well-staged musical numbers of even a lesser version.

8. The Rage: Carrie II (1999, dir. Katt Shea)

I maintain that if this had just been a loose remake of Brian De Palma's Carrie (which it mostly is) instead of a direct sequel, it would be a better movie. But then it couldn't appear on this list, could it? The inclusion of elements from the original movie -- chief among them the reappearance of Amy Irving as Sue Snell, who deserved better -- feels almost like a studio note instead of something in which director Katt Shea was really interested. This is a better remake of Carrie than any of the other remakes of Carrie, of which there have already been two as of this writing.

9. The Godfather Part III (1990, dir. Francis Ford Coppola)

It seems silly to call a sequel to two of the best movies ever made and one which was nominated for multiple Academy Awards including Best Picture "underrated," but The Godfather Part III hasn't enjoyed the kind of life and respect afforded to its predecessors. It's the red-headed stepchild of the trilogy, but it's still good! I like all the stuff with Michael Corleone trying to atone for his past sins. I like Andy Garcia's super-intense performance and Joe Mantegna's Joey Zaza. I even like Sofia Coppola's unaffected and raw performance as Michael's daughter -- the aspect of the film most critics at the time (and since) cited as being the movie's biggest problem. I still haven't seen Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone, which might be an even better movie, but I like the theatrical cut and will go to bat for it.

10. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024, dir. Tim Burton)

It took so many years and so many false starts to get a legacy sequel to Beetlejuice to screens, which becomes apparent when watching 2024's Beetlejuice Beetlejuice because it feels like at least one idea was kept from every different draft of a script that got written. It's overly busy, for sure, but everyone involved is clearly enjoying themselves -- none more than Tim Burton, who feels excited and alive to try ideas for the first time this century. I'll stand up for a well-intentioned mess even when it's born out of cash-grabby studio cynicism because no one in front of or behind the camera approaches this movie cynically.

FTM 811: THE 2026 F THIS MOVIE FEST SHOW

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

The gang recaps F This Movie Fest 2026, recorded live right after the fest.

Download this episode here.

Subscribe to F This Movie! on Apple Podcasts

Johnny Showtime: BEN-HUR in 4K

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

by JB

I wonder what his pronouns are?

I will admit that 1959’s Oscar wunderkind Ben-Hur was a huge, widescreen hole in my ginormous film knowledge base. Before the release of the new 4K Blu-ray disc, I had never seen it.

(I pause here for Biblical jeering, insults and approbation. ”Insults and Approbation,” by the way, was the name of a band I was in when I was in college.)

I am glad I finally saw it. The new 4K transfer is getting kudos everywhere it is reviewed. It’s a restoration of an old-fashioned, widescreen roadshow epic that you simply must see. Although it’s only March, I feel confident in saying that this will be one of the best discs of the year.

I am on record here as being no fan of 1955’s The Ten Commandments and have poked gentle fun at it several times lo these past fifteen years. I am now convinced that Ben-Hur is the “antidote film” to Commandments in terms of comparable religious epics.

Ben-Hur is everything The Ten Commandments wishes it could be. Ben-Hur is compelling; Commandments is turgid. Ben-Hur contains two of cinema’s greatest action scenes; Commandments is inert. Ben-Hur’s dialogue is natural and concise; Commandments’ dialogue is limp, purple, and silly, even though the finished film lists four screenwriters. Ben-Hur’s performances are vivid and memorable; Commandments’ performances somehow manage to be both cardboard and overwrought. Ben-Hur’s direction is deft; Commandments’ direction is elementary and crude. Ben-Hur’s score, by Miklos Rozsa, is beautiful and compelling; Commandments’ score, by Elmer Bernstein, is uncharacteristically forgettable.

I could go on and on. In one of the few examples of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences getting something right, The Ten Commandments won one measly Oscar, Best Special Effects. (Around the World in 80 Days won Best Picture that year.) Ben-Hur went home with eleven, a record at that time: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, Best Film Editing, Best Special Effects, Best Production Design, and Best Costume Design. It only lost in a single category in which it was nominated, Best Adapted Screenplay. This is a record matched only by Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

THE PLOT IN BRIEF. REMEMBER, THE FILM IS FOUR HOURS LONG: Messala (Stephen Boyd) returns to Jerusalem, the city of his childhood, because he has been made Roman Commander of the Fortress Antonia there. He is reunited with his childhood friend, Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) a rich Jewish prince and merchant. Messala wants Judah to rat out local Jews who oppose Roman rule; Judah refuses.

An accident involving loose roofing tiles gives Messala the excuse to have Judah and his mother and sister thrown in jail. Judah is sentenced to row in the galley of a warship—a death sentence. While being transported to the ship, Judah drops from exhaustion and thirst, but a local carpenter offers him water. This “local carpenter” may or may not become important later in the story.

Judah excels at rowing and actually manages to stay alive during an epic and arduous battle at sea. He saves the life of Roman Consul Quintus Arrius (Jack Hawkins). Returning to Rome, Arrius petitions Emperor Tiberius to free Judah, then adopts Judah as his son. Judah becomes a master charioteer, largely by befriending the horses and treating them well.

Judah seizes on an opportunity to compete in a chariot race against Messala and extract his revenge. The chariot race is brutal, even by brutal Roman chariot race standards, made even more so because Messala, for some strange reason, is allowed to have chariot wheels with sharp, spinning spikes sticking out of them. MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT: Judah wins the race. Messala falls from his chariot, is trampled by horses, and breaks every bone in his body. Judah searches for his mother and sister. He does not like what he finds.

The chariot race is rightly the most famous scene in the picture. It took five weeks to shoot and cost over a million dollars. Stars Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd actually learned how to drive chariots, and the fact that it’s really them in most shots helps to sell the scene’s realism. Seven thousand extras were hired to play the crowd in the stands. Seventy-eight horses were trained to pull the chariots. The sequence was directed by Andrew Marton and legendary stuntman Yakima Canutt, filmmakers who often acted as second-unit directors on other director's films. The ratio of footage shot to footage used in the sequence was 263 to 1, one of the highest ratios ever for a Hollywood film. Sergio Leone was one of the assistant directors in the sequence’s second unit crew. The finished sequence is sixteen minutes of pure cinema.

I was blown away by the quality of the image here; it’s one of the best 4K Blu-ray discs I have ever seen. Focus is razor sharp; colors are vivid and eye-popping; the level of fine detail is reference quality; and the soundtrack is clear, booming where it needs to be, and pleasing to the ear. I felt that viewing this disc on my massive flat screen TV was the closest I was ever going to get to an authentic 1950s roadshow experience, unless someone decides to buy the Cinerama Dome and reopen it.

Please buy the Cinerama Dome and reopen it.

Friday Night Double Features Vol. 64

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

by Adam Riske and Patrick Bromley

Ten new double features to help you through F This Movie Fest withdrawal.

Double Feature 1:

Adam: #1: Little Italy (2018)
Patrick: #2: Mystic Pizza (1988)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Slice, “Avoid the Noid” TV Spot, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Master
Patrick: Theme: Pizza! Pizza!

Patrick: My favorite food is pizza! Let us devote an entire night to its glory. I still have never seen Little Italy so I’m excited to check it out on the big screen and serve up some slices during the show. Also, I love Mystic Pizza, a movie that would never be made in 2026 because there’s no room for it in our current ecosystem. Does the pizza scene in NoES 4 gross you out as much as it does me? Not because Freddy is eating human souls but because someone has requested full-size giant meatballs on their pizza. Who are these sociopaths?

Adam: This double feature sounds delightful. Did you know you paired two Donald Petrie movies? He made two pizza movies! The man went back for another slice. I really enjoy both Little Italy (OMG Roberts) and Mystic Pizza (OMGish) so this is in the running for my Patrick pick when we do another FNDF podcast in November. I’m right there with you on being grossed out by Freddy meatballs. It’s maybe worse than the Roach Motel and that’s saying something.

Double Feature 2:

Patrick: #1: Bottoms (2023)
Adam: #2: Wuthering Heights (2026)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: The Moment, Mother Mary, The Angry Birds Movie, UglyDolls, 30-minute Music Video Block
Adam: Theme: At the Movies with Charli XCX

Adam: This one’s for you bud! I know how much of a fan you are of Charli XCX, so I wanted to build a night around her pretty great work in cinema. I’m playing catch-up by comparison with most fans of hers, but I really love her music in Bottoms and her music being a hook for the new Wuthering Heights is one of the main reasons I’m interested in seeing that movie. Have you watched The Moment yet? How was it? I’m looking forward to Mother Mary with the combo of Charli XCX (as a composer/contributor to the music) and Anne Hathaway. It’s enough to supersede my occasional David Lowery allergy.

Patrick: You’re such a good friend. I’m coming to this first just for the 30-minute video block so I can spend more time with my girl. The Moment is pretty weird! Like it doesn’t really commit to a tone, but I love that it’s what Charli wants to do instead of a regular concert movie or something like that. She’s a believer in cinema! I love her Bottoms score, and her Wuthering Heights score is my favorite album of the year so far. It kicks that movie up an entire star. I didn’t realize she had a David Lowery joint in the pipeline but now I’m eagerly awaiting it. Did you hear she’s making a movie with Takashi Miike? She’s such a real one.

Double Feature 3:
Adam: #1: Out for Justice (1991)
Patrick: #2: Marked for Death (1990)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Above the Law, Machete, Executive Decision
Patrick: Theme: Seagal + Good Directors

Patrick: I know this theme is pretty obvious because Seagal only worked with good directors for the first few years of his career, meaning I could have just as easily made this an “Early Seagal” night (minus the Machete). These are movies that are meant to be watched together. What’s your favorite early Seagal? I seem to remember it’s Under Siege, which I didn’t program a trailer for only because he was reuniting with Andrew Davis from Above the Law.

Adam: Under Siege and Out for Justice are my #1 and #2 Seagals overall. This pairing would be a blast. Can we not have him attend the screenings? This is a good theme because now I’m thinking about how fortunate a lot of these ‘90s action stars were to have solid directors helming their early movies (e.g. guys like Sheldon Lettich, Kevin Hooks, John Woo, etc.).

Double Feature 4:

Patrick: #1: The End of Violence (1997)
Adam: #2: Warriors of Virtue (1997)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Turbulence, Zeus and Roxanne, Red Corner
Adam: Theme: MGM 1997

Adam: I think my favorite theme to do on Friday Night Double Features is picking a year and a studio and building a night around their output. It probably makes more sense to have Red Corner (a deeply silly movie masquerading as a serious movie) as the second feature but I couldn’t resist the whiplash of playing Warriors of Virtue (which you bought for me on Blu-ray!) as the second movie after The End of Violence. Is that a Bill Pullman movie you like? I haven’t seen it, although I am a fan of the one Wim Wenders movie I have seen (Perfect Days). I’m woefully behind on his filmography.

Patrick: I’m totally deficient in my Wim Wenders too! End of Violence might be the only movie of his that I’ve seen, making this a real My Blueberry Nights situation. I like The End of Violence for the cast and for the LA and for the Pullman of it all, but I wouldn’t defend it as being a great movie. I’m stoked to finally see Warriors of Virtue at last, especially sitting right next to its biggest fan. We do sit next to each other at these doubles, right? Am I crowding you?

Double Feature 5:
Adam: #1: Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar (2021)
Patrick: #2: Tenet (2020)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Da 5 Bloods, Miss Juneteenth, Palm Springs
Patrick: Theme: Best of COVID

Patrick: Barb and Star is one of the only good comedies of the last 10 years and it was doomed by its release date. I like the idea of fixing that with a double of COVID releases even though pairing it with Tenet is probably a terrible idea that selfishly is just for me. I know Tenet still made money from all those side-of-building screenings, but I’ve never gotten to see it on the big screen and I’m excited for this double.

Adam: Lol. That side-of-building screening of Tenet was a moment where I had to take stock of my life and the decisions that led up to that event. I’d like to revisit Tenet. It hasn’t clicked for me yet. I really liked Barb and Star back in 2021 but kind of forgot about it until recently when I was going through my collection. I remember thinking the evil Kristin Wiig was cute even though they made her look creepy. I’m broken.

Double Feature 6:

Patrick: #1: The 400 Blows (1959)
Adam: #2: 300 (2007)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: 200 Cigarettes, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Zero Effect
Adam: Theme: Countdown

Adam: It’s hard to pick a second feature to follow The 400 Blows, which is a landmark film, so I went with a frat bro classic and a silly theme to follow. I dunno. I’m embarrassed that I’ve only seen the first half of The 400 Blows but have seen 300 twice in full.

Patrick: I like this double for how insane it is. The 400 Blows is really good! 300 is less good but I haven’t seen it since opening night so maybe it’s great and better than The 400 Blows and I’M the problem?

Double Feature 7:
Adam: #1: Free Willy (1993)
Patrick: #2: Quigley Down Under (1990)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: RoboCop, Under Siege 2, Conan the Barbarian
Patrick: Theme: Score by Basil Poledouris

Patrick: I love the Free Willy score. Thanks for introducing me to that movie. I wanted to program it with another movie with a score I love and immediately landed on Basil Poledouris’ score for Quigley Down Under, a great and underrated western that’s BONUS also directed by Simon Wincer, meaning I got to backdoor a double for one of my guys.

Adam: You can’t go wrong with a double Wincer. Thanks for finally getting me to sit down to watch Quigley, which I think you played at a birthday marathon a few years back. It’s maybe the best thing Tom Selleck has ever done. Basil Poledouris was such an underrated composer. I sometimes listen to his Free Willy score in the car. It’s relaxing and makes me want to keep driving until I get to the Shedd Aquarium. I’m glad we’re making a tribute to him. I didn’t know he did the RoboCop score. That’s awesome.

Double Feature 8:

Patrick: #1: Final Destination 2 (2003)
Adam: #2: Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell (2001)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: The Virgin Suicides, Out Cold, I’m Reed Fish
Adam: Theme: A.J. Cook Night

Adam: Sometimes I get a movie crush on an actor and I’m like “Am I the only one?” Such is the case with A.J Cook. Do you think we can get her to come out for her theme night? This will also give me an excuse to watch Wishmaster 3 for the first time, which I’ve been opposed to in the past because it doesn’t star Andrew Divoff as the Djinn. P.S. I stumble across the DVD of I’m Reed Fish at the library sometimes and I’m always tempted to check it out because it’s an unseen Alexis Bledel movie. Between her and A.J. Cook, I’m afraid I’d never return it and then there’d be late fees and the library would take my card away, etc., etc.

Patrick: This is a pretty undeniable double and I’m excited to see Wishmaster 3 for the first time but I’m even more excited to see you see it for the first time. A.J. Cook is pretty great. I like her in the few movies in which I’ve seen her. I’m sure she would come out if we devote a night to her. Also, I’m picturing the cover art for I’m Reed Fish and knowing I will never ever see it. Let me know how it is.

Double Feature 9:

Adam: #1: Light of Day (1987)
Patrick: #2: Satisfaction (1988)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Live performance by Tina Yothers’ band Jaded, Family Ties episode “Band on the Run,” Back to the Future “Johnny B. Goode” scene
Patrick: Theme: Family Ties Rocks

Patrick: I love that both Alex P and Mallory Keaton made rock star movies in the span of a year. I also really like both these movies in very different ways: Light of Day is a legit good Paul Schrader movie, and Satisfaction is garbage I love. We’re playing both of Julia Roberts’ pre-Pretty Woman roles this month at the Cinemarink! And did you know Jennifer Keaton had a band? Do you think Brian Bonsall has any musical ability? I picture him doing rap rock.

Adam: Amazing theme and maybe the double feature I’d want to do first since I haven’t seen either in decades. I didn’t know Jennifer had a band! This is exciting. We should probably keep Bonsall away from the Cinemarink. He’s allegedly troubled. Besides, he’s busy in Times Square with Grandpa’s Magic Pinecone (that’s a Christmas Coca Cola ad from the ‘80s joke…look it up).

Double Feature 10:

Patrick: #1: Short Cuts (1993)
Adam: #2: The Player (1992)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Kansas City, The Gingerbread Man, Cookie’s Fortune, Ini Kamoze “Here Comes the Hotstepper” music video
Adam: Theme: ‘90s Robert Altman

Adam: Just like Wim Wenders and Francois Truffaut, I’m way behind on my Robert Altman viewing. I think the only ones I’ve seen are Popeye and Gosford Park, which I kinda like and just plain like. The two I’ve always been like “one day” are Short Cuts and The Player so here’s my opportunity to knock both out in one evening at the Cinemarink. Are you a fan of any of the other ‘90s Altman’s featured in the trailer block?

Patrick: I’m a big Short Cuts and The Player guy but I’m a little less down with Altman’s other ‘90s output. I think I liked Cookie’s Fortune when I saw it in theaters but have never seen it since and I’ve actually never seen Kansas City even though Jennifer Jason Leigh is in it and I should. There aren’t many movies that could play after Short Cuts but good call on the Altman double because The Player totally could. I’m excited to take this journey with you. When the movies are over we can spend the rest of the night talking over each other because Altman would want it that way.

It's F This Movie Fest 2026!

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Sat, 7 Mar 2026 02:00:00 -0600

Join us on BlueSky at 10 am CST today!

(All times CST)

10 am

Charlie's Angels

(dir. McG, 98 minutes)

Noon

Pitch Black

(Dir. David Twohy, 108 minutes [theatrical cut])

2:15 pm

Bring It On

(dir. Peyton Reed, 99 minutes)

4:15

Gone in 60 Seconds

(dir. Dominic Sena, 118 minutes)

6:30 pm

The Replacements

(dir. Howard Deutch, 118 minutes)

8:45 pm

Gladiator

(dir. Ridley Scott, 155 minutes)

10 Things I Learned From Watching So Many 2000 Movies This Month

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Fri, 6 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0600

by Patrick Bromley

This month has been educational.

I've watched a lot of movies from the year 2000 since picking it for this year's F This Movie Fest. Watching so many films from the same year does interesting things to your brain, causing you to make connections that you might not otherwise make. This isn't really that kind of list. This is just a list of some observations I've had over the last month of watching movies.

1. Erika and I Saw Pretty Much Every Movie in 2000

Going through the titles released in 2000 is a trip down memory lane given just how often E and I went to the theater this year. We were pretty newly dating, we had no kids, and were just starting to work full-time so we had a lot of freedom to go to the movies, which is what we loved to do. This is how I saw stuff like Gossip and Supernova and What Planet Are You From? and The Big Kahuna and Titan A.E. and The Tao of Steve and Whipped and a whole bunch of other movies that don't exist projected on 35mm on the big screen. These days I would love to see any of these movies that way but back then we took it for granted as something to do on a Saturday.

2. This Was the Year I Fell Back in Love With Sandra Bullock

I've mentioned this on a few recent podcasts (I think) but I had turned on Sandy B. by the year 2000 thanks to a string of movies I either had no interest in seeing (In Love and War, Two if by Sea) or movies I actively disliked (Practical Magic, Speed 2: Cruise Control). Seeing the trailer for 2000's Gun Shy incessantly before every movie I saw in late '99 and early 2000 didn't help matters either. But then I saw 28 Days, her comedy drama in which she plays an alcoholic court ordered to attend rehab, and was pretty impressed by both her and the movie. Miss Congeniality later the same year sealed the deal: Sandra Bullock and I were back on good terms. I think she's gooooorgeous. I want to daaaaate her. Love her and maaaaaary her.

3. Red Planet is Better Than Mission to Mars

It stands to reason that I was very, very excited to see Mission to Mars in April of 2000. Brian De Palma was still, at that time, my favorite filmmaker and was coming off Snake Eyes, a movie I had loved. He was doing science fiction for the first time! It was the first movie I ever saw projected digitally, which didn't do it any favors in terms of liking it more. It's bad. It has some ideas and a few decent sequences (the one with Tim Robbins is the best thing in the movie), but it didn't work for me at all. I caught up with Red Planet, released the same year in a real Dante's Peak/Volcano situation, on snapcase DVD the following year and thought it was pretty forgettable, too. Rewatching both this month, I realize that Red Planet is much more successful in its modest goals than Mission to Mars in its loftier ones. It's still not great, but certainly more entertaining than I remember and way more willing to lean into B-movie pulp than M2M, which think it's Solaris. Plus Val Kilmer and Carrie-Anne Moss are hot together and Gary Sinise and Don Cheadle are not.

4. Robert De Niro Jumped the Shark

I know the common wisdom is that The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle broke Robert De Niro, casting him in a role that's beneath him as Fearless Leader in a messy, mostly unsuccessful adaptation of a beloved '60s cartoon. As a halfway defender of that movie, I don't think it's the worst thing he did in 2000. No, that would be Men of Honor, the based-on-a-true-story drama about Navy divers and how racism is bad that plays like a 30 Rock parody of this material. Somehow De Niro manages to be more cartoonish here than in the movie where he plays a literal cartoon, and the fact that he gives such a big, broad, bad performance (as a dirty dirty racist officer married to Charlize Theron, who thought she was in a Tennessee Williams play) in such a bad movie tarnishes his legacy way more than Rocky and Bullwinkle. He should have known better. The fact that he was so good in Meet the Parents this same year doesn't even totally help because it enabled his pivot to comedy in the 2000s, which led to forgettable movies like Showtime and eventually Dirty Grandpa. This year was the beginning of the end for one of the best to ever do it.

5. I Like The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas

I avoided the Flintstones prequel for 26 years because despite being a fan of The Flintstones since childhood I was not a fan of the 1994 live action film and because the trailers made the sequel/prequel look pretty awful, like a community theater production of the first movie. I know JB recently named it as one of the worst movies of that year. But I got a bee in my bonnet about seeing it this month and was pleasantly surprised by just how silly and funny I found it (that it's co-written by Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont, the pair responsible for the great Josie & The Pussycats, no doubt makes a huge difference). If you were to replace this movie's cast -- Mark Addy, Kristen Johnston, Stephen Baldwin, and Jane Krawkowski -- with the original movie's cast but keep everything else the same, you'd have a pretty solid Flintstones movie. Any adaptation of the cartoon that includes Alan Cumming playing The Great Gazoo knows exactly what it is.

6. Erika Loves Action

The year 2000 was the year that Erika decided she loved action movies. The titles responsible? Gone in 60 Seconds, part of this year's F This Movie Fest and not a great movie but a great movie to skeet through, and John Singleton's remake of Shaft starring Samuel L. Jackson. The latter wound up being the first DVD she ever owned when a friend and I went in together to buy her a player and a movie for her birthday in 2001. I love that these movies, which are like 2 1/2-3 star movies at best, are what inspired her affection for action movies and not the dozens of better ones she had already seen. She's the best.

7. Many Comedies of 2000 Have Not Dated Well

As I started working my way through the movies of 2000 over the last month or so, I noticed that so many of the comedies released that year depended on outdated ideas about women and stuff like gay panic and transphobia to try to score laughs. I guess I was surprised because it's technically this century and what the fuck are we even doing, but at the same time it's been 26 years and progress has been made. Dude, Where's My Car? was probably the biggest offender of the ones I watched; I actually wanted to program it for F This Movie Fest because it's sneaky good in so many ways, but it steps wrong so often and in such big ways that there was no way I could include it. Not very shibby, guys.

8. 2000 Pretty Much Killed the 2nd Wave Teen Movie

As a kid who great up in the 1980s, the Teen Movie has always meant a lot to me -- not just the films of John Hughes, but all of his imitators and the junk inspired by the likes of Porky's too (but not Porky's 2). Seeing that genre return in 1999 with the success of She's All That, American Pie, 10 Things I Hate About You, and a few others gave me hope for what was clearly looking to be a 2nd wave. That lasted about a year, because by 2000 it had already led to stuff like Loser, Here on Earth, Down to You, Whatever It Takes, Boys and Girls, and The In Crowd and the genre pretty much ended the resurgence in its nascency. More good teen movies would still be made here and there, but you just can't survive that many bad entries and still remain viable at the box office.

9. I Didn't Miss Much

I know I said we saw everything in 2000, but that was an exaggeration at best and a lie at worst. There were some movies that fell through the cracks, which I've been trying to rectify this last month by seeing some of what I missed. None of those will end up at the top of my ranking, even though some of them (like Finding Forrester and The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas and Girlfight) were ok to pretty good. Girlfight, in particular, deserves credit for giving us the career of Michelle Rodriguez. Also I didn't get a chance to see In the Mood for Love this month, which I'm guessing would have made my Top 10 so when I say I didn't miss much I'm full of shit because I still missed that one.

10. We Really Did Have It All

While I hesitate to call 2000 a "great" year for movies, it's the kind of year we don't get anymore: one with a ton of variety, movies both big and small and, even more importantly, a lot of movies right in the middle. I miss the middle. We got not one but two movies about Mars expeditions. We got family movies both animated and live action. We had comedies. Spike Lee was experimenting with shooting on digital and Robert Zemeckis was cranking out an extra banger while on hiatus from shooting one of his best movies. Things were changing, yes; digital projection started rolling out this year and X-Men was released, helping to change the face of the modern blockbuster. But we still had a healthy ecosystem for movies. Looking back after 26 years, we didn't realize how good we had it.

Review: THE BRIDE!

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Thu, 5 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0600

by Rob DiCristino

The worst couple you know is about to ruin your Halloween party.

We begin in an inky black void. This is the afterlife, we’re told, where author Mary Shelley (Jessie Buckley) has writhed in discontent since a brain tumor cut her promising career short at the age of 53. While modern audiences may revere her as the author of Frankenstein — which she wrote “on a dare,” according to the defiant opening banner text — Mary spent much of her working life in the shadow of her husband, Percy, whose literary renown always seemed to outpace her own. In the years since her death, Mary has done a lot of thinking about why that might have been. Why was her own work regarded with such marginal interest for so long, while her husband’s was held in such high esteem? Why is the work of women always discounted with such flippancy, as if their male equivalents possess some inherent talent that they lack? It isn’t right, Mary barks at us through the void. It isn’t fair. It’s time for women to fight back and get the respect they deserve. Frankenstein may have made her name, Mary tells us, “but I have more to say.”

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! is the next chapter of her story. We begin in 1930s Chicago, where good time girl Ida (also Buckley) entertains a gaggle of mobsters. Somewhere between the cocktails and innuendos, Ida is suddenly possessed by the spirit of Mary Shelley, jumping onto the table and scolding her companions in a throaty — and disarmingly articulate — London roar. Things get out of hand and, long story short, Ida ends the evening in a pauper’s grave. Meanwhile, Frankenstein’s Monster (Christian Bale) — who has wandered alone since his creator’s demise — tracks down the noted mad scientist Dr. Euphronious (Annette Bening). Frank is dying of loneliness, he tells her, and only the love of a reanimated companion can make his life worth living. You get where this is going, of course. With Detectives Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) and Mallow (Penelope Cruz) hot on their tail, Frank and Ida — now “Penny” — get their Bonnie and Clyde on, crashing parties and curb-stomping any jackass loudmouths dumb enough to get in their way.

If Gyllenhaal's feature debut The Lost Daughter was a delicate, understated mosaic full of nuanced characters and humanistic themes, then The Bride! is its snot-nosed baby sister, a blood-splattered fairy tale for the Hot Topic set that refuses to bend to the edicts of good taste. Light on plot but heavy on vibes, Gyllenhaal’s film reimagines James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein as a primal scream of feminine rage. As Mary Shelley eggs her on from beyond the grave, Buckley’s Bride cuts a violent swathe of self-discovery that inspires downtrodden women across America to rise up and dismantle a patriarchy that treats them as disposable, second-class citizens. Meanwhile, her piecemeal paramour pursues his own best life, a new beginning molded in the image of Golden Age song-and-dance man Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal). Frank may be lying to his Bride about a shared past that never actually happened — he says they’re newlyweds reincarnated after an “accident” — but their momentum feels powerful enough to keep them together forever.

It isn’t, of course, and our Bride will eventually have to reckon with the uncomfortable truth of Frank’s deception. Like Detective Mallow — whose female intuition unlocks clues in the case that the oafish Detective Wiles would never spot on his own — she’s a woman breaking free from this man’s world, a lusty, undisciplined siren who’s had Just About Enough of the cops, mob bosses, and cadaverous cassanovas who try to control her. Gyllenhaal’s thematic work may be loud and obvious throughout The Bride! — leading to a clumsy third act that nearly screws the whole damn pooch — but there’s an intentionality to it that is nonetheless endearing, a gothic irreverence that protects it from any truly meticulous criticism. Imbued with the manic power of her literary mother and styled like a Pinterest board of Helena Bonham Carter characters, Buckley’s Bride is an undeniable force of nature, a magnetic turn from a gifted actor who — like Margot Robbie and Emma Stone before her — should put the Oscar bait aside for a while and let her freak flag fly.

So while it may lack the intellectual heft of Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance — and, more graciously, the condescending smarm of Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights — there’s enough style and verve in The Bride! to justify the ambition of Gyllenhaal’s swing. It’s a fun idea executed with energy and talent, an opportunity for a fledgling director to hone her craft while collaborating with a stable of talented family members like Jake Gyllenhaal — playing smug and greasy, go figure — and former co-stars like Christian Bale. Bale can do a morose, cockney Frankenstein with rage issues in his sleep, of course, but Gyllenhaal is wise to have her Dark Knight hold the center of the picture while Buckley colors in all its broader edges. She’s probably the only thing we’ll remember about The Bride! a year from now, but Hollywood — especially the Golden Age era (era) recreated here — used to run on curiosities like The Bride!, with journeyman directors unafraid to work across genres. A few more wild left turns like this, and Maggie Gyllenhaal could easily become one of them.

The Bride! hits U.S. theaters on Friday, March 6th.

2000 Week: SHANGHAI NOON

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Wed, 4 Mar 2026 12:00:00 -0600

by Rosalie Lewis
The movie that turned me into a Chan-girl.

When Patrick shared that this FTM Fest would be focused on the year 2000, I got very excited. So many of my movie firsts happened that year, and I watched lots of things in theaters and home video after a lifetime of being restricted from doing so. I also got to vote in my first presidential election that year, which had a less rewarding outcome, so let’s stay focused on the movies. Shanghai Noon marked the first time I saw Jackie Chan on screen. It was not my first movie Western; that honor belongs to either Tombstone or Wild Wild West. I’m pretty sure it was also my first time seeing Owen Wilson on screen, because I wouldn’t dive into Wes Anderson films until the next year. I share all of this to say I had a rather limited frame of reference for Shanghai Noon and all its allusions to other cultural touch points. Even so, I loved it immediately and got caught up in the action and the comedic hijinks and the odd couple at the center of the frame. I purchased the VHS once my video store started selling the pre-watched copies and I showed it to my younger siblings, who also found it hilarious and heartwarming.

Watching it again now, 26 years after its release, I’m happy to say it really holds up. One could certainly do worse than this for an intro to Jackie Chan, and this time around I really admired the craftsmanship and love that went into the movie. Because it’s Jackie, of course there are lots of practical stunts that he performs himself along with his team; but beyond that, the production design and attention to detail on the physical locations is impressive. There’s very little CGI—a few fake mountain ranges here or there to enhance the background—and lots of carefully designed sets and set pieces. They actually went to the Forbidden City in China to shoot the opening scenes. They built a real gallows for the hanging stunt. They paid to use eight miles of train tracks for the robbery scenes. They studied ancient artwork and historical documents to get costumes right. They made sure to cast actors and extras with the correct ethnicity – which may go without saying now, but in the year 2000 definitely not a given.

In case you haven’t seen this one in a while (or ever), basically this is director Tom Dey’s homage to Westerns like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Sergio Leone’s Man With No Name trilogy, and the movies of John Ford. The twist is that it’s an “Eastern Western” because it puts Jackie Chan (whose name in the movie is Chon Weng—say it out loud and you’ll get the joke) into the mix as an Imperial Guard from the Chinese army who is supposed to be guarding the Royal Princess (Lucy Liu) on her trip to America. When the train carrying this Royal party gets held up by robbers (including not just Owen Wilson but also relative newcomer Walter Goggins), Chon Weng’s on a collision course with his new enemy turned frenemy turned friend Roy O’Bannon (Wilson). Roy’s mostly in it for the ladies, not so much for the crimes. Because it’s a Western, of course there are some encounters with Native Americans as well. Your mileage may vary with how well the movie handles the potential cultural minefields—the director admits on his commentary that, “We weren’t very politically correct, but I think we made fun of the white people the most.” I would generally agree with that, but it’s probably the part of this movie that has aged the most questionably.

Lucy Liu doesn’t have a ton of screen time, but she makes the most of her role as princess who has become a pawn in a larger scheme involving politicians using Chinese immigrants to build a railroad. She stands up for the workers at her own peril and uses the little agency she has to protect them from further harm. In a recent interview with Vogue, she mentioned that this movie led to her casting in Kill Bill. Quentin Tarantino apparently saw Shanghai Noon and thought Lucy Liu played her role with dignity and gave the character a fighting spirit, and decided she’d be perfect for O-Ren Ishii.

Owen Wilson is a lot of fun in this movie, riffing with Jackie and talking a lot and kind of just being the Owen Wilson we all know and love now. He really had an amazing run with Bottle Rocket, Shanghai Noon, Meet the Parents, Zoolander, and The Royal Tenenbaums. I realize not everyone loves Wedding Crashers, but I would probably throw that in too because it’s a trademark Owen Wilson comedy. Who is the Owen Wilson of 2026? Is there one?

The most year 2000 thing about this movie is definitely the music. There are not one but two Kid Rock tie-ins: a needle drop of his song “Cowboy” plays in the movie, and the DVD contains a music video with clips from the movie for the song “Yeah Yeah Yeah” by Uncle Kracker in which Kid Rock appears as a silent partner dressed in his tacky best doing some swaying and affirmative hand movements. So in case you’re playing Six Degrees of Kid Rock anytime soon, he has worked with Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson, Dean Norris, Walton Goggins, and Lucy Liu at least this one time. This movie spawned a sequel, Shanghai Knights. I have not rewatched it in quite some time, but I don’t remember finding it quite as magical as this movie—basically just transplants these two dudes into London so they can mix it up with new scenery and cultures. As for Tom Dey, I’m not sure he ever recaptured the wonder of this electric directorial debut—though I have not yet seen Marmaduke, maybe it secretly rules.

FTM 810: THE 2000 SHOW

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Wed, 4 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0600

Patrick and Erika lead up to F This Movie Fest 2026 by counting down their favorite movies of 2000. Plus: Erika shares her "Best Of" list for 2025!

Download this episode here.

Subscribe to F This Movie! on Apple Podcasts

Johnny Showtime: F This Movie Fest Treats and LIbations!

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Tue, 3 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0600

by JB

It’s that time again.

F This Movie Fest is this Saturday and I could not be more excited. Not only do I have the six chosen films in hand (Three of them in 4K!) but this year we will be hosting what I’m dubbing F This Movie Fest West by welcoming LA Doug and Sonia Mansfield into our private viewing chamber.

What to serve?

Sitting out on our balcony last night, enjoying some homemade S’mores, that question plagued us. If Patrick was good enough to curate six boffo movies from the year 2000, we could surely dream up some themed treats. Or could we?

Charlie’s Angels
Brunch Delight: Angel Food Cake and Berries. There is only one rule of thumb for this delicious combo—more berries! Just when you think you have enough, add more berries! More berries! More berries! You know... Berry... More!

If you would rather pay tribute to the villains, make it Devil’s Food Cake. Add a hank of human hair for extra fun!

Pitch Black
Espresso Martini: This is the standard ratio for a perfectly balanced Espresso Martini.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 oz (60 ml) Vodka (such as Tito's or Grey Goose)

• 1 oz (30 ml) Coffee Liqueur (such as Kahlúa or Mr. Black)

• 1 oz (30 ml) Fresh Espresso (hot or cooled)

• ½ oz (15 ml) Simple Syrup (optional, add for more sweetness)

• Garnish: 3 coffee beans

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Prep: Brew a fresh shot of espresso.

2. Combine: Add ingredients to a cocktail shaker.

3. Ice: Fill the shaker with plenty of ice.

4. Shake: Seal the shaker and shake vigorously for 15–20 seconds, or until the shaker is frosty. This step is crucial to create the foam.

5. Strain: Double strain the mixture into a chilled martini glass.

6. Garnish: Three coffee beans. In the Italian tradition, these represent health, wealth, and happiness. In the Furyan tradition, these represent two eyes with eyeshine plus one coffee bean.

Bring It On
“Cheerios Your Team on to Victory” Treats: These are standard Rice Krispy treats, but you, dear reader, are going to be oh-so-clever and swap out the Rice Krispies for Cheerios! Divide the batch in two: color one half Toros red and the other half Clover green. Then “bring them on” to your guests and hear them cheer(ios)!

Gone in 60 Seconds
Junkyard Dogs: This derivation of the classic “Drunken Sailor” appetizer pays tribute to Robert Duvall’s dog, Otto (the one who eats the keys) and the "Memphis" barbecue feast Nicolas Cage and his crew enjoys at the end of the film. Original recipe courtesy of AllRecipes.com. We played with it a little.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 (12 ounce) bottle barbecue sauce

• 1 (14 ounce) bottle ketchup

• ½ cup brown sugar

• ½ cup whiskey

• 4 tablespoons Frank’s hot sauce (or less if you're more of a Kip.)

• 1 (16 ounce) package hot dogs, sliced into 1/2-inch pieces; or 1 (16 ounce) pack of little baby hot dogs.

• 1 box toothpicks

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Pour ketchup, barbecue sauce, and hot sauce into a slow cooker; stir in brown sugar and whiskey. Add hot dogs.

2. Cover slow cooker. Cook on low for 6 long hours. Serve with toothpicks.

3. So very addictive that they will be... gone in 60 seconds! This will be a bit of a disappointment, since they took 21,600 seconds to cook.

The Replacements
“Replacement Rumaki:” Legend has it that Donn Beach, aka Don the Beachcomer (Do you like tiki drinks? He invented more than half of them.) so hated to waste food at his eponymous Hollywood restaurant that he invented rumaki rather than throw chicken livers in the trash. Original rumaki consisted of marinated chicken livers wrapped in bacon. Seems most bar patrons will eat anything 1) if they are drunk enough on Mai Tais or 2) if that “anything” is wrapped in bacon.

I can still remember the first time I ever ate rumaki. It was at the bar at the late, lamented Wellington restaurant in Arlington Heights, Illinois. I didn’t know what it was. I had never eaten it or even heard of it before. The bacon was delicious—WHAT THE HELL IS INSIDE HERE?! Yuck.

You can fix this. Liver-averse snackers often use a water chestnut as a substitute for the awful offal. You are going to replace the liver with a water chestnut, the same way Gene Hackman replaces all the professional athletes with Keanu Reeves. Got it? Delicious! Here we have a fine recipe, courtesy of “The Wicked Noodle.”

INGREDIENTS
• Whole water chestnuts
• Bacon: Don't use thick-sliced bacon as it will take too long to crisp up.
• Ketchup: Any brand will work, so just use your favorite.
• Light brown sugar: The sugar will help the sauce to caramelize.
• Worcestershire sauce: All you need are a few dashes, but it adds a lot of flavor, so don't skip it!
• Sriracha or other hot sauce: Add more of this if you like a little spice.
• Toothpicks: These need to be soaked in water for 30-60 minutes before assembling.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Set your oven to 375°F, so it can preheat while you're getting everything ready.

2. Place a wire rack over a sheet pan and set it aside. The wire rack is important for the bacon to get crispy on all sides. You can also line the pan with parchment paper for easy cleanup.

3. Grab a small mixing bowl and add the ketchup, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce and Sriracha. Mix it until it's completely combined, then set it aside.

4. Slice your bacon into thirds crosswise. Wrap one piece of bacon around a water chestnut and secure it with a toothpick. Place each wrapped water chestnut onto the wire rack, and repeat this until bacon and water chestnuts are gone.

5. Bake the rumaki until the bacon is starting to get crispy (around 30 minutes or so). Remove them from oven and, using a basting brush, dab the sauce all over each one.

6. Return them to oven and continue cooking them until bacon is crisp and sauce is sticky and thick, another 10-15 minutes.

7. Serve them immediately, although they'll still taste great at room temperature. Touchdown!

Gladiator
Bread and Circuses: To pay tribute to this film’s endless shots of Russell Crowe walking through the wheat, simply lay out a Bread and Circuses dip bar! Offer delicious Wheat Thins crackers, cheeses, hummus, salsa, olives, and garum (an ancient Roman fish sauce.) Delicious.

"See" you all on Bluesky this coming Saturday. Bring your own napkins.

Reel Talk: LOVE & BASKETBALL

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Mon, 2 Mar 2026 05:00:00 -0600

by Sonia Mansfield and Adam Riske

Love is like a defensive rebound. That sounds profound, right?

Adam: We’re back and I’m pumped because it’s F This Movie Fest week and this year we’re celebrating movies of the year 2000, which was an important year for me (I started it in high school and finished it in college) and one in which I saw so many movies in theaters and on video/DVD. One I didn’t see in theaters but did thanks to Blockbuster Video was Love & Basketball, the feature directorial debut by Gina Prince-Bythewood (The Old Guard, The Woman King) who also wrote the film. It stars the great Omar Epps and the great Sanaa Lathan as next-door neighbors who progress from childhood to adulthood as friends, friendly rivals, lovers, and unrequited soulmates. The movie is told in four sections (labeled in the movie as “First Quarter” etc.) and covers the evolving relationship between Epps and Lathan through childhood, high school, college, and early adulthood.

I’m glad we got to revisit Love & Basketball because I couldn’t remember what I thought of it back in 2000. The film’s legacy for me was the great song “Dance Tonight” by Lucy Pearl, which plays over the end credits. I liked the movie but didn't love it on this viewing. The best thing the movie has going for it are Epps and Lathan, who have solid chemistry (they had starred together already in The Wood from 1999 and were reported to have been dating around the time Love & Basketball was released) and they’re both actors who are easy to root for thanks to their charisma and vulnerability. I also really liked that the movie gave you a perspective on professional women’s basketball in the early onset of the WNBA, where opportunities were mostly limited before to women playing overseas after their collegiate careers ended.

On one hand, I like that the movie is mellow and leisurely paced. It’s a gentle movie, but I also think that sort of grounds it when it could have been an exploding heart movie had it sustained more energy.

Sonia: This was a first-time watch for me. I was working as an arts and entertainment editor at a newspaper in 2000, and I saw a lot of movies during that time. I’m not sure how Love & Basketball got by me, but I suspect I chose to see The Virgin Suicides instead. This movie has been on my watch list for a long time, and I’m glad that F This Movie Fest finally gave me a reason to move it to the top.

I knew this movie was going to be a slam-dunk for me when it opened with them playing basketball as kids to the song "Candy Girl” by New Edition.

Omar Epps should’ve been a bigger star. He’s one of those actors who’s always good, whether it’s comedy or drama. Plus, he’s got charisma to spare. He’s doing a delicate dance in this movie, because on paper, his character Quincy could be a real jerk. He’s the son of a NBA player, and he gets a lot of things handed to him that Sanaa Lathan’s character Monica has to work twice as hard to get. But there’s a softness and playfulness in his scenes with Lathan that make his character more sympathetic.

I really love Lathan in this movie. Monica is smart and knows what she wants. She’s a badass on the court, but in the real world, when faced with society’s expectations of femininity, she’s awkward and kinda shy. And she’s a really good player, but she’s not perfect. She still has things to learn, and Lathan’s performance and Prince-Bythewood’s script do a good job of getting us on and keeping us on her side.

They have great chemistry, and I didn’t know that they were in The Wood together. *immediately moves The Wood up her watch list*

What trailers would you put in front of it, Adam?

Adam: I’d go with four trailers. The first is Finding Forrester because it’s another 2000 movie where basketball is prominent. Then I’d pick Boys and Girls because both that movie and Love and Basketball know what a wacky game love can be. Next, I’ll have Bring It On because it involves cheerleaders and they are fixtures at high school and college sporting events, and lastly in honor of Tyra Banks (who appears in Love & Basketball), I’ll program Coyote Ugly, which in my memory has a great trailer. I kinda like that movie.

Were you relieved like me to see Tyra Banks and Omar Epps together again (at least temporarily) in the third act of Love & Basketball? It’s like a make-good for the tragedy that befell them in Higher Learning. It’s their 25th Hour fantasy. Maybe the entirety of Love & Basketball is a “what if” deleted scene and we’re still watching Higher Learning and we didn’t know until now.

A few questions for you:
1. The supporting cast is stacked in Love & Basketball; do you have a favorite supporting performance?
2. Do you have another recommendation for our readers of an Omar Epps and/or Sanaa Lathan movie?
3. How has your pre-game for F This Movie Fest been going? Any recommendations of other movies you’ve watched for the first time or revisited?
4. Lastly, what is your favorite basketball movie?

Sonia: I want to give a shoutout to the actresses playing the mothers, Alfre Woodard as Monica’s mom, and Debbi Morgan as Quincy’s mom. Woodward is always great, but she gives a role that could’ve been one-note a little bit of sadness about the dreams she gave up but also proud of the daughters she raised. And Morgan, well, while she’ll always Angie from All My Children to me, she is terrific here. You can see she’s struggling with wanting to protect her son from the truth about his father vs. wanting him to see what she’s been putting up with all these years.

What’s your favorite supporting performance, Adam?

Adam: Those are two really good choices. I’ll also shout out Dennis Haysbert as Quincy’s dad. Haysbert is always solid and he’s so strong at portraying men you want to like who end up not always being as virtuous as you want them to be. I feel bad for Quincy’s family. Haysbert (as spokesperson for Allstate) asked “Are you in good hands?” and, alas, in Love & Basketball the answer is no.

Sonia: If readers are looking for more Omar Epps, I remember really liking 1992’s Juice, but it’s been years since I’ve seen it. I remember Tupac kinda stealing that movie from everyone, but maybe I’m rewriting history. For Lathan, I’d recommend Brown Sugar, which is basically Love & Basketball, but instead of basketball, it’s hip-hop, and instead of Omar Epps, it’s Taye Diggs.

I’ve revisited a few 2000 movies to pre-game for F This Movie Fest. I’ve avoided anything too heavy because the world is worlding, and I wanted something light. So I rewatched Dancer in the Dark. Just kidding. I'll never watch Dancer in the Dark again. I rewatched Center Stage. Look, I know it’s not a great movie, but I like it. I love movies with dancing.

I’ve got two more movies I’m planning to watch. The first one isn’t light. It’s American Psycho. I’m curious how this one is going to hold up for me. And then I’m going to reward myself for watching American Psycho by watching Miss Congeniality.

Isn’t everyone’s favorite basketball movie White Men Can’t Jump followed by Hoosiers? I mean, I guess there’s a chance that The Air Up There is someone’s favorite.

What’s your favorite basketball movie, Adam?

Adam: The Air Up There hasn’t aged well. It’s basically Kevin Bacon being like “You’re tall and can dunk. You have no other choice than to play basketball.” White Men Can’t Jump is my favorite comedy of all time, so by default it’s my favorite basketball movie. My backup answer is Hoop Dreams and not only because as a resident of the Chicagoland area it is law to say Hoop Dreams is the best basketball movie.

Thanks for joining me for a chat about Love & Basketball, Sonia. We’ll be back next time discussing a new release.

For our readers, what are your thoughts on Love & Basketball? Have you seen any good 2000 movies lately?

Happy F This Movie Fest week everyone!

Weekend Open Thread

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 02:00:00 -0600

2K Replay: HIGH FIDELITY

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0600

by Adam Riske

Nominated for “Best Cameo in a Movie” (Bruce Springsteen) at the MTV Movie Awards. He lost to James Van Der Beek (RIP) in Scary Movie.

• Best Scene/Moment: Almost any scene in this movie could work because it’s consistently great but for personal reasons I’ll go with when John Cusack stacks all his records on the floor to sort them autobiographically. I do something similar with my movies, where I like to pull them off the shelf and look through them often to decide what I can get rid of. Almost every time I find at least one movie I would probably sell if not for the fact it has some autobiographical significance in my life and I could never part with it.

• Best Song: Way too many to choose from, but my personal favorite is Stevie Wonder’s “I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever)” which plays over the end credits.

• Best Merch: A “John Cusack High Fidelity Movie Promo Dry Erase Board Rare Marker Touchstone 2000” for $25.44. This is awesome, especially for a person like me who loves making to-do lists. If I wrote down my top 5 things to do today on a High Fidelity dry erase board, I would be much more productive.

• Director Grade: High Fidelity was directed by Stephen Frears.
Great Movies: The Grifters, High Fidelity
Good Movies: Dirty Pretty Things, The Queen, Philomena
OK Movies: The Program
Bad Movies: Hero
Unseen By Me: Gumshoe, The Hit, My Beautiful Launderette, Price Up Your Ears, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, Dangerous Liaisons, The Snapper, Mary Reilly, The Van, The Hi-Lo Country, Liam, Mrs Henderson Presents, Cheri, Tamara Drewe, Lay the Favorite, Florence Foster Jenkins, Victoria & Abdul, The Lost King
Overall Grade: B

• Double It with This 2000 Movie: Almost Famous
• Year 2000 Movies to Trailer Before Them: Coyote Ugly, Keeping the Faith, What Women Want

• Ella McCay or High Fidelity? High Fidelity

• Mall Movie? Borderline no. I feel like John Cusack movies would start at the fancy theater in town but eventually play the mall at the end of their run.

• Only in 2000: Me having an opinion about Iben Hjejle. I know she’s been in a lot of movies (especially Danish films) but the only other movie besides High Fidelity I’ve seen her in is Defiance and I remember nothing about it.

• Scene Stealer: Jack Black.

• I Miss: When movies shot in Chicago neighborhoods were commonplace.

• I Don’t Miss: The “What does it all mean?” phase where I look back on past relationships and regrets and try to interrogate them. I’m over doing that.

• 2000 Crush (tie): Catherine Zeta-Jones and Natasha Gregson Wagner.

• 2026 Crush (tie): Natasha Gregson Wagner and a little bit Lisa Bonet but she always seems way too cool for me.

• What I Thought in 2000: High Fidelity was the first John Cusack movie I liked because of him. I started out with him on stuff like Con Air and he always seemed like the actor your cool older brother’s into instead of someone for me. I love record stores and collector culture, so this movie spoke to me in 2000.

• What I Think in 2026: I love High Fidelity and enjoy it even more now than in 2000. It’s one of my favorite romantic comedies, it’s funny every time, the music is terrific, and it’s a great hangout movie. This is one of my favorite movies of the year 2000. It’s an all-timer.

P.S. Do I need to watch the TV series with Zoe Kravitz?

I Am a #$!@*% Millionaire: Ben Affleck in the Year 2000

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0600

by Rob DiCristino

The year my boy became a movie star.

Bounce (Dir. Don Roos)

The second of two films Ben Affleck did with then-paramour Gwyneth Paltrow (the other being 1998’s Shakespeare in Love), Don Roos’ Bounce introduces a charming and arrogant young advertising executive named Buddy — a stretch for Affleck, I know, but remember that movies are all about suspension of disbelief — who inadvertently avoids a deadly plane crash when he gives his ticket to a beleaguered father (Tony Goldwyn as Greg) trying to get home to his family. Wracked with guilt over his role in Greg’s death, Buddy tracks down his widow (Paltrow as Abby) and together they do the rom-com thing in the typical fashion: Will Buddy cop to his role in Greg’s death? Are Abby and her children ready for a serious relationship? Will Affleck ever be half as talented an actor as Paltrow? Despite middling reviews from critics — although Bounce is an example of Patrick’s “a 2-star movie in 2000 is a 5-star banger now” thesis — the film pulled in a respectable $53MM and, according to firsthand reports from Adam, did well enough at Blockbuster to break about even.

Even with Paltrow acting circles around him, Affleck and his crispy hair are good in Bounce, a romantic comedy with enough late-’90s savvy to feel like it’s lovingly embracing a stock genre formula instead of lazily appropriating one. There’s a nice equity of blame at play — Abby lies to Buddy, too, claiming at first that she and Greg are divorced — and it’s notable that Bounce is one of the first times on screen that Ben confronts the alcoholism that will soon come to define his public persona. There’s also some great 2000-era (era) stuff, with references to AOL discs, Lycos searches, and Abby being “between beeper numbers.” Roos’ screenplay might occasionally back itself into some tonally-mismatched corners that distract from the romance — survivor’s guilt, mortgage rates, outdated sexual politics, a civil trial that bankrupts an airline — but Bounce is a strong effort from a budding leading man who’s establishing an affinity for offbeat material, a handsome shithead whose heart — if not any of his other organs — is in more or less the right place.

Reindeer Games (Dir. John Frankenheimer)

We’ve already covered John Frankenheimer’s Christmas actioner Reindeer Games a fair bit at FTM — see Reserved Seating and 2K Replay for a deeper dive — so let’s just consider the Affleck of it all: Watching Reindeer Games back-to-back with Bounce, it’s easy to see why the year 2000 was a dream for the actor’s agent: These roles solidified his four-quadrant credentials — or five, if we allow a “finance bros who love Boiler Room” quadrant — and made him the poster boy for the glossy, dial-up aesthetic that defined the early part of the new millennium. Affleck doesn’t have anywhere near the gravitas of previous Frankenheimer leads like Burt Lancaster, Gene Hackman, or Roy Scheider, but then, neither did that period of pop culture. This wasn’t an age of gritty antiheroes who embodied malaise and cynicism. No, despite Frankenheimer's attempt to give it a ‘70s edge, Reindeer Games is all pre-9/11 mall-core, the product of a time when gaudy, brainless programmers were prevalent enough that a competent one like this could be a certified box-office bomb.

For his part, Affleck acquits himself well enough. It’s clear how game he is to be playing an ex-con in a John Frankenheimer joint, how much he relishes the opportunity to share the screen with real actors like Gary Sinise and — while her talents wouldn’t be recognized for a few more years — Charlize Theron. You could certainly argue that Affleck is too green to be playing a hardened car thief at this point in his career, but the aloofness that hobbles him in the early going actually becomes a kind of hapless cunning that benefits the film as it goes on. Frankenheimer’s wide-angle close-ups give the whole affair a paranoia that Affleck eventually embodies with a fair bit of confidence. Again, Sinise and Theron are the real draws of Reindeer Games — Theron plays a double-crossing gun moll straight out of a gangster classic — but it also demonstrates how Affleck learned to carry an ensemble thriller, which would pay off in his career-best performance in David Fincher’s Gone Girl.

Boiler Room (Dir. Ben Younger)

Look, there’s no way I’m rewatching Boiler Room, so let’s just talk about Affleck’s big speech. It’s his Glengarry Glen Ross moment, of course, and while he can’t quite fill out that three-button suit or get enough gravel into his voice to make the “Fuck You” moments feel as commanding as Alec Baldwin or Michael Douglas might have, it all fits Boiler Room’s essential twerpiness: He should feel a little weightless, a little full of shit. That scene should feel like a smarmy asshole flopping his dick on the table. He should be performatively confident enough that other greedy idiots like Giovanni Ribisi’s aspiring broker would be in awe of his Axe Body Spray charisma. 2000 was, after all, a transition phase in popular culture, a time when the Baldwins and Douglases of yesteryear would have felt outmoded to a generation reared in the wake of Gen X cynicism and staring down a bedazzled, Extremely Online future. Affleck’s shit-eating swagger was a feature, not a bug, which made him the ideal leading man for the new millennium.

FTM 809: CAST AWAY

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0600

Patrick and Adam Riske make fire.

Download this episode here.

Subscribe to F This Movie! on Apple Podcasts

Also discussed this episode: Primate (2026), The Postman (1997), Love Stinks (1999), Proof of Life (2000), Titan A.E. (2000), You Can Count On Me (2000), Yi Yi (2000), The Contender (2000), The Outfit (1972), 28 Days (2000), Meet the Parents (2000)

Johnny Showtimes: 10 Stinkers from the Year 2000

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0600

by JB

If you are pre-gaming F This Movie Fest... as we all are ... here are some films to avoid. Or not! I cannot live your life for you.

Looking back this month on the movies released in 2000, I think that most of us have concluded that it was ONE HELL OF A YEAR to be a film fan. However, the mirror has two faces... you must take the sour with the sweet... the bad with the good... the most beautiful rose has the sharpest thorns... that writer you like on the F This Movie machine does tend to go on and on with tedious metaphors and pointless analogies... you’ll find that is why pencils have erasers.

1) The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle: This misbegotten turd makes me feel so bad for Robert De Niro, who was somehow coerced into playing Fearless Leader with bad prosthetic make-up and a goofy cartoon accent... and making fun of his own famous Taxi Driver monologue to boot. I understand that some Hollywood checks are large and easy to cash, but do they have to be so humiliating? Bobby, please leave that shit to third-rate club comics and SNL.

2) Battlefield Earth: Patrick waxed regretful about this stinkfest last week, but can I just repeat that the bad guys in this movie are called Psychlos? You know, like “Psycho,” but with an “L”? Sheesh. L. Ron Hubbard, get a day job!

3) Chocolat: Transparent awards fodder. As if Harvey Fucking Weinstein dumped all of his Miramax Oscar-baiting bullshit into some horrible computer and yelled, “Write me another one!” and “Can I jerk off on you?”

THERAPIST: “JB, how do you really feel?”

4) The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas: I once offered to take my little nieces and nephews to the movies one afternoon and this is what we wound up seeing. For 26 years, I have tried to make amends for that. I still don’t feel that I have sufficiently apologized. I think John Goodman escaped appearing in this witless farce because he had a note from his mother.

5) Hollow Man: With all due apologies to Paul Verhoeven, this might be my least favorite version/remake/rip-off of The Invisible Man. Not even engaging, reliable performers like Kevin Bacon, Elisabeth Shue, and Josh Brolin can save this forgettable tale.

6) Nutty Professor II: The Klumps: Okay, I will admit that I am biased here because 1) I am overweight and 2) I have a tremendous chip on my shoulder about the fact that fat people are the last minority it is socially acceptable to mock. Discuss. Though he plays the quintessential nerd in Bowfinger, Eddie Murphy made the questionable decision to change Jerry Lewis’s Nutty Professor into the Fatty Professor and Family. Boo.

7) Pay It Forward: Inert, virtual-signaling tripe, before virtual signaling was even a thing. Plus: KEVIN SPACEY!

8) Requiem for a Dream: My antipathy for this Reefer Madness remake is well known. But I come by it honestly; Darren Aronofsky killed my father. He beat him to death with a double-headed dildo.

9) Titus Andronicus: I am on record as hating every Shakespeare production that goes all “creative” on the material regarding time period and setting. “What if we set Julius Caesar in a giant office building? What if we set Romeo & Juliet in modern-day Miami? What if we set Taming of the Shrew in a fucking rodeo?" What if we take all these creative theatrical producers out and have them "exit, pursued by bear"?

As a former high-school English teacher, I have suffered through more than my share of modern dress Shakespeare, where the show “kind of works” until all the business-suited office types take out the daggers and the spears in Act III and start stabbing each other to death. This version of Titus is yet another of these “modern business office" rewrites, and it almost works until the title character orders a secondary villain to have his hands chopped off... and further orders said secondary villain to carry said hands around in his mouth. Careful! You may get blood all over your Brooks Brothers’ tie! Here, you can blot that clean with your pocket square!

Or maybe... I don’t know what really goes on at Apple board meetings.
Maybe this film portrays just another Wednesday afternoon in the corporate world.

10) 2001: A Space Travesty: In the wake of his late-career success in the Naked Gun franchise, Leslie Nielsen made some baaaaaaaaaaaad comedies: Stan Helsing, Repossessed, Mr. Magoo, Spy Hard, Surf Ninjas... How bad is this lame Kubrick parody? Nielsen plays a character named Dick Dix.

I know that a man’s gotta eat, but c’mon. This is a bit of a comedown for the star of Forbidden Planet. You can tell the desperate producers were praying for Nielsen’s presence ALONE to sell the film when you consider the entire remaining cast is a laundry list of performers THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD OF. Or maybe that’s just a Canada thing.

As I eagerly anticipate whenever I post a column such as this, I might have trod on someone’s cinematic toes with these highly personal picks. Be honest. Did I hurt your feelings? Now is your chance to use the comment section below to PROVE ME WRONG!

Heavy Action: THE 6TH DAY

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0600

by Patrick Bromley
In which Arnold does sci-fi. Again.

2000 was a real turning point for Arnold Schwarzenegger. In reality, the turn had already happened: Eraser was pretty much his last Golden Age success and by the end of the '90s he was taking supporting roles in Batman & Robin or trying to shake up his image by appearing in End of Days, a horror movie in which he fights the Devil. While both movies were technically hits -- End of Days more than doubled its $100 million budget worldwide -- it was hard to shake the feeling that Arnold, once the biggest star on the planet whose run of successful movies defined the late '80s and much of the 1990s, was on the ropes.

Looking back now, it's also hard not to feel like turning the page into 2000 also marked the end of an era (era) for Schwarzenegger. Even though his star had fallen a little by the end of the '90s, we still reflect on his stature in a movie cumulative way: he owned the decade. Similarly, the 2000s are defined not so much by the movies he made, of which there are few, but by his turn into politics. He would make only a couple more movies before hanging it up for a decade to become elected Governor of California, and though he would return to movies in the 2010s, it was hard to deny that his biggest days were behind him. The movie industry had changed so much during his political career that there was no longer room for his kind of outsized action and screen persona.

Despite being released in 2000, The 6th Day feels like a product of Schwarzenegger's post-Governator career because it feels just like a movie in which he's trying to recapture his Glory Days despite practically still being in them. He plays Adam Gibson, a pilot living in the highly futuristic world of 2015 in which cloning has become perfected by outlawed for humans by the "6th Day laws." You can probably already guess where this is going. He returns home one day for his daughter's birthday and discovers that a clone of him is already there celebrating, causing Adam to go on the run to discover the truth of his existence and bring down the company responsible for going clone crazy.

Unlike some of his Heavy Action contemporaries, Schwarzenegger regularly returned to the sci-fi genre after getting launched to stardom with The Terminator. (Only Jean-Claude Van Damme has made as many sci-fi movies if not more.) From Predator to Total Recall to all the Terminator sequels with which he is involved, Schwarzenegger has found some of his biggest successes inside science fiction probably because he fits in so well there -- how else to explain his very existence than within a world in which anything is possible? Him returning to the genre at a time in which he was clearly struggling to figure out his place in the changing Hollywood ecosystem makes total sense. The 6th Day, however, might have been the wrong vehicle in which to do it. Whereas most of Arnold's movies felt like Capital E Events, this one has real Programmer vibes -- not bad, but weirdly unremarkable. It comes up in movie discussions about as often as Jet Li's The One, another oft-forgotten sci-fi actioner in which an action star plays multiples -- that is to say not very often. Sorry to all you One-heads for the drive-by.

If this was a DTV JCVD title, it might be more fitting. That guy loves to play doubles of himself! But also there's a transient quality to the filmmaking: the movie has a tacky sort of cheapness to it, a flatness to the photography, and a flash that's trying way too hard to be "of the moment" that it feels like something that's meant to exist in 2000 but not last. As a vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger, The 6th Day is pretty underwhelming. Maybe part of the issue is that it comes up short in delivering its biggest sell, which is the opportunity to see two Arnolds acting opposite one another. The nature of the plot demands that they be the exact same character -- same memories, same personality, same abilities -- meaning there's no fun in seeing them interact, only that there is two of them. The divide-and-conquer approach that the two take for the climax also means we don't get to see them share a ton of screen time, either. I would much rather see Schwarzenegger take on a Double Impact -- or, the very least, a Multiplicity -- than what it is he's asked to do here.

But Arnold isn't the issue with The 6th Day. That comes down to the screenplay and the filmmaking. The movie is written by the husband and wife screenwriting team of Cormac and Marianne Wibberly, here billed separately on their first produced credit but who would later willingly be billed on screen simply as "The Wibberlys" (for movies like the Shaggy Dog remake). They've contributed to some stuff I've liked, including Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and the National Treasure films, but their scripts tend to be overly busy and less focused on "character" than "stuff." Also I have a hard time excusing screenwriters or filmmakers who go by cutesy names. Looking at you, "The Drews." Also McG.

In the hands of the right director, this could maybe still work! I'm just not sure Roger Spottiswoode was the right guy for the job. He has a real "for hire" approach that I like for his workmanlike movies such as the super underrated Shoot to Kill -- he even made a Bond movie I like! (Tomorrow Never Dies) -- but he's also got credits like Air America and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot that remind me he's maybe not able to overcome weak material. He doesn't have a take on The 6th Day or even on the future in which it takes place; he's just on hand to execute the script and make questionable stylistic choices (an overreliance on post-production slow-mo chief among them). This kind of movie demands the demented weirdness of a Paul Verhoeven. I know Paul Verhoeven, and you, Roger Spottiswoode, are no Paul Verhoeven. He continues to direct but this would up being his last major studio release, I'm guessing because it barely cleared it's $86 million budget at the box office. That probably has something to do with it being marketed via an all-timer bad movie poster.

That's not to say there isn't any weirdness. There are flashes here and there of a better, more original movie. Sometimes it's the undercooked Tony Goldwyn clone in the movie's climax, a gag (pun intended) actually worthy of Verhoeven. Sometimes it's the henchmen who keep getting maimed and murdered only to be respawned for the same thing to happen again. Sometimes it's the SimPal life-size doll that Schwarzenegger buys for his daughter, legitimately one of the most fucked up things ever put in front of a movie camera. I think it's just a function of the filmmakers not having the budget or the technological capabilities to build what they wanted but the fact that they wound up using genuine nightmare fuel ends up being either unintentionally, or, if I'm being generous, intentionally funny. What I'm saying is that it's really saying something when Michael Rapaport's wig is not the most upsetting thing in this movie.

I don't love The 6th Day as much as I wish I did, but I can still watch it pretty much any time I'm in the mood for glorified SyFy action. As much as I dig Schwarzenegger in superhuman mode -- his factory setting -- I do kind of like when he plays against type and does a clueless Hitchcockian everyman trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. A lot of shit gets shot with laser guns, and I'm always down for that. Michael Rapaport gets killed twice. There are things to like. But the landscape was changing or had already changed by 2000. Movies were different. Even two Arnolds couldn't split that difference.

Weekend Open Thread

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 02:00:00 -0600

Five 2000 Movies for Five 2000 Pop Punk Albums

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0600

by Rob DiCristino

It wasn’t a phase, Mom.

Loyal readers will recall my affinity for 2000s pop punk, that wave of power-chord-driven alternative rock that was aggressive enough to piss off your stepdad but catchy enough to be played at the mall. The Bouncing Souls. The Ataris. Lagwagon. Any band that headlined Warped Tour or the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater soundtrack would qualify. Somewhere on a spectrum between purer punk like Rancid or Pennywise and the more introspective emo scene emerging in the Midwest, pop punk — or, as my record store calls it, “MySpace Core” — gave snotty malcontents like me an outlet for our adolescent rage. Pop punk of the year 2000 built on the breakthrough of bands like Green Day and Blink-182, solidifying a movement that continued through the Fall Out Boy/Paramore era (era) of the late-00s to modern acts like State Champs and Machine Gun Kelly. To celebrate 2000 Month — and to indulge me in a bit of nostalgic reminiscence — let’s pair a few iconic ‘00 pop punk records with ‘00 movies that fit their bratty, Hot Topic energy.

1. New Found Glory and High Fidelity
The pogo-jumping Florida quintet made their major label debut with this self-titled album, glossing up their melodic post-hardcore for the MTV crowd with anthems like “Hit or Miss” and “Dressed to Kill.” Though it’s still one of my favorite records, listening to New Found Glory today feels like thumbing through my teenage diary at 2x speed; it’s a chronicle of a time when every breakup triggered an existential crisis, a time when I was too insecure to recognize how my own emotional blindness doomed each romance from the start. In those days, girls were cruel and selfish (“This song’s for stupid girls/who think that every boy is all about them”), but good buds and good music would save us in the end (“Let’s toast the night away to friends/and forget about tomorrow”). Is there a better conceptual match than Stephen Frears’ High Fidelity? Both are ur-texts for male insecurity, swooning melodramas desperately masking their sentimentality under layers of performative angst. Simply put, Rob Gordon would hate how much he loves this record.

2. Maybe I’ll Catch Fire and In the Mood for Love
Though Chicagoland gloom-punk three-piece Alkaline Trio wouldn’t properly break through until 2001’s From Here to Infirmary, Maybe I’ll Catch Fire was crucial to establishing co-vocalist/bassist Dan Andriano’s influence on their developing sound, as tracks like “She Took Him to the Lake” and “You’ve Got So Far to Go” mix the band’s sepulchral mood with a warm, yearning emotionality. Andriano’s songs have a certain romantic self-deprecation to them, and while Maybe I’ll Catch Fire is probably defined by co-vocalist/guitarist Matt Skiba’s “Radio” — an aggressive fuck-you to a former love — Andriano’s songs counterbalance Skiba’s theatrics with something more intimate and confessional. There’s a candle-lit quality to Maybe I’ll Catch Fire that recalls Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love, a moody and voyeuristic film about the unspoken desires we confine to the margins of our affairs. Andriano’s croon even has the same ache as Wong’s cinema, a hushed quality that might shatter under the slightest bit of pressure.

3. Good Charlotte and Battle Royale
Elder Emo Millennials might bristle at the notion that they were ever into Good Charlotte, a band that felt tailor-made for TRL in an era (era) when thrift-store credibility ruled supreme. Headlined by the Madden brothers — whose chiseled good looks also irritated the punk intelligentsia of the day — Good Charlotte was derided as a focus-grouped product meant to capitalize on a DIY movement. Their studded belts were too clean. Their liberty spikes were too perfect. Listening back to their 2000 self-titled album, it’s hard to separate the power pop sheen of “Little Things” from softcore acts like Simple Plan, but assimilation was everything in those days, even in a subculture fixated on individuality. Good Charlotte’s mix of punk and polish led me to Kinji Fukasaku’s Battle Royale, which brought another emerging subgenre — the transgressive ‘90s Japanese thriller — to a wider audience by giving its trademark elements a more commercial panache. Its violence is an aesthetic choice, not a narrative necessity, a spectacle staged for maximum visibility.

4. MxPx’s The Ever Passing Moment and Almost Famous
MxPx were already pop punk godfathers by 2000, but it was the success of their fifth album that cemented them as mainstays on the basement show circuit for decades to come. Though it’s not essential listening — spin Ten Years and Running to get the gist of their skate-core vibe — The Ever Passing Moment does feature key tracks like “Responsibility” and “My Life Story,” three-chord wonders driven by the same earnest, defiant corniness — “Don’t hate me forever/I’m better late than never” — that marks so much of MxPx’s work. Don’t let the tattoos and piercings fool you: these are thoughtful, conscientious boys rocking in service of growth rather than indulgence, a sensibility echoed in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous. Like MxPx, William is hopelessly uncool, approaching his youth as an opportunity to learn instead of a prison sentence to endure. Through it all, he avoids the cynicism that his idols use to shield themselves from self-reflection, using sincerity as a path to integrity and “Responsibility” as a path to insight.

5.The Mark, Tom, and Travis Show and Road Trip
I’m cheating a bit here, as Blink-182’s live album features songs released between 1995-1999, but it technically came out in 2000 and features the unreleased studio track “Man Overboard,” so I’m counting it. Cool? Cool. I remember my dad buying this for me the day it came out — Enema of the State was and still is our favorite album — and listening in disbelief as Blink sped through songs even faster than they did on their records and filled every lull in the action with dick jokes so profane that I wouldn’t understand most of them until college. It’s juvenile irreverence that borders on gross misconduct, so obviously we’ll pair it with Todd Phillips’ Road Trip, another gleefully obscene tract about a group of boys stuck in a voluntary state of arrested development. Time hasn’t been kind to either text, but at least both use chaos and cruelty as an avenue for bonding and reinforce a kind of camaraderie — however idiotic — in their bullying and provocation. Boys will be boys, it seems, and they’re perfectly content to stay that way.

Take Two: BATTLEFIELD EARTH

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0600

by Patrick Bromley
I had high hopes for this one in 2000, less so in 2026.
By now I'm sure we've told this story on the podcast: back in 1997, Doug and I went to see Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers on opening night somewhat ironically. We were unfamiliar with the source material, didn't recognize most of the actors advertised save for Neil Patrick Harris and Michael Ironside, and, most of all, the trailers were kind of dogshit because (in hindsight) there's no real way to accurately advertise that movie. We thought it could be a trainwreck. About a quarter of the way into its running time, though, we turned to one another completely giddy, both acknowledging we hoped the movie would never end. It became an immediate favorite and taught us an important lesson in expectations in that often times, the best movies are the ones that surprise you the most.

Fast forward to the year 2000. Having been taught all the wrong lessons by the Starship Troopers marketing, Doug and I were positive that Battlefield Earth stood a chance at being a new subversive classic. Sure, the trailers were just as bad, but we had been fooled before, right? And this looked like more wild and out there science fiction! We weren't going to wait for the evening screening this time. No sir, we made sure we were at the first show on the first day. It couldn't have been long -- within the first 5-10 minutes is my memory -- before we looked at one another, the realization of our tragic error hitting us both at the same time. Oh no, we thought. We have fucked up.

Based on the 1982 book of the same name by ~~cult~~ Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, Battlefield Earth places us in the year 3000, where a nine-foot tall, dreadlock'd alien race called the Psychlos have ruled the planet for the last thousand years. They capture humans -- they call them "man animals" -- and force them into labor. One human they capture, Jonnie Goodboy Tyler (Barry Pepper), draws the attention of security chief Terl (John Travolta) because he seems cunning and capable. He can give Terl LEVERAGE, the most important commodity among the Psychlos. Hoping to use the man animals to mine gold deposits that exist outside the Psycholos' dome of breathable air, Terl puts Jonnie Goodboy inside a learning machine and teaches him Psychlo language and history. How else is he going to mine gold? Well, Jonnie Goodboy uses his newfound knowledge to teach the other man animals and lead a revolt against the Psychlos. Who's got leverage now??

A number of times when I've written these "Take Two" pieces in the past, it's because I've re-evaluated my feelings on a movie since seeing it the first time. Movies don't change, but we do, meaning every viewing is different. My son was just watching Interstellar last night and I was reminded of the fact that I didn't love it when we recorded our podcast on it (I think it was the final act that was a sticking point for me, which is still kind of true) but couldn't figure out why because the movie is kind of incredible. I would love to have changed my opinion about Battlefield Earth in the 26 years since it was released. It means a new movie I get to like! That is so not the case. If anything, I found it more of a drag this time around and nearly impossible to get through. This might be one of the most poorly put together movies I can remember seeing, at least at this level of budget and pedigree. It has movie stars! And tens of millions of dollars at its disposal!

Unfortunately, it's all dogshit. Director Roger Christian, an Academy Award-winning set designer, production designer, and second unit director, is clearly aiming for a sci-fi pulp aesthetic, all canted angles and wipes borrowed from George Lucas and Star Wars. It stops being a style and starts feeling oppressive, compounded by the dark, dingy cinematography run through a blue filter and two tons of dirt. I get that it's science-fiction and that it's a post-alien apocalypse story but the aesthetic is simply cheap and unpleasant to sit in for two hours -- just one of the many ways in which Battlefield Earth fails. In fact, I would argue that the movie fails on just about every single level and every single measurable criteria by which a movie can fail. That it is not the worst 2000 movie I've watched so far this month is solely a testament to the fact that it remains in focus, which cannot be said of The Smokers.

Being bad is not the greatest sin a movie can commit. Bad movies can be fun and entertaining! Battlefield Earth manages to be very, very bad in ways that are never entertaining. It is dreadful and lifeless and dull, and that's really the worst thing a movie can be. Can a story about a human revolution against scheming, petty, alien overlords be interesting? Of course! Is this one? Absolutely not. I want to give Battlefield Earth credit for making the Psychlos into such catty bitches -- Terl, in particular, is constantly trying to fuck over his friends and level up in Psychlo hierarchy -- but even that choice feels kind of joyless in its execution. Much of that, I'm sorry to say, is on Travolta. As a longtime member of the Church of Scientology, I can appreciate that this was a dream project for him and he spent the better part of two decades trying to bring it to the screen. It's not entirely his fault that Hubbard wrote -- based on this adaptation, at least -- a shitty novel and that Travolta was too blinded by devotion to see the Leverage for the trees.

Travolta is a good actor and a great movie star. When he's at his best -- Saturday Night Fever, Blow Out, Pulp Fiction, Get Shorty -- no one can touch him. Without the right director or the right material, though, he can be left to his instincts and his instincts are not always great. He chooses the wrong projects and can sometimes be bad in them (as evidence, he made Lucky Numbers, in which he is spectacularly miscast and gives a miscalculated performance as a result, the same year as Battlefield Earth). He can be a bit of a ham sandwich, and nowhere is that more readily on display than his performance as Terl. Buried under ugly, uncool makeup and costuming, Travolta goes way over the top as a cartoon villain but without the Joy of Performance that denotes similarly B-I-G turns like Jack Nicholson's Joker or Al Pacino's Big Boy Caprice. It should have been the one thing that worked in this mess! But despite getting the opportunity to cut completely loose inside of a dream project he spent 20 years trying to get made, Travolta's performance is -- like everything else in Battlefield Earth -- airless and tacky.

Shitting on Battlefield Earth is an empty gesture, like shitting on a flag made of shit. Remembered 26 years later as one of the worst films ever made, it's too easy a target and I would much rather find myself able to champion it against the accepted wisdom. I just can't get there. Even divorced of my feelings about L. Ron Hubbard and his religion, this movie is poisoned. The Church of Scientology reportedly required its members to purchase multiple copies of the novel to ensure its success as a bestseller. Would that they had done the same for ticket sales of the film adaptation, which somehow still grossed almost $30 million globally (2000 was a different time) against a $44 million budget -- not, as Franchise Pictures originally declared, $75 million, for which they were sued and investigated by the FBI. See? This movie really is a crime.

John Travolta's career never really covered from his disastrous 2000, and he transitioned to more supporting roles and found success only in ensembles before getting back to starring parts in DTV vehicles. Bad performance aside, I can't fault him for Battlefield Earth. It was a project that meant a lot to him and he was following his passions, something every artist should be allowed to do. Would could possibly have guessed that L. Rob Hubbard and the Church of Scientology would lead him so far astray? As for my second viewing, it might have been even worse than my first. This time, I knew it was a scorpion. This man animal should have known better.

FTM 808: TRAFFIC with Leo Brady

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0600

Patrick and Leo Brady are losing the war on drugs.

Download this episode here.

Subscribe to F This Movie! on Apple Podcasts

Also discussed this episode: Wuthering Heights (2026), Cold Storage (2026), The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011), Crimewave (1985), Solo Mio (2026), Narrow Margin (1990), Silent Night Deadly Night (2025), The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996)

Read more of Leo's work at AMovieGuy.com!

Johnny Showtime: 10 Favorites from the Year 2000

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0600

by JB

Oh, to be 38 years old again...

This month, in anticipation of F This Movie Fest on March 7, we are celebrating the year 2000. I remember... I had been teaching high school English for 15 years. I had been married for 13 years. My son had just turned ten. (singing) “Yes, I remember it well.” While looking through several lists of “The Best of 2000,” I marvel at just how many movies I saw that year. Here are some of my favorites. If you are “pre-gaming” the Fest, as I see on the social medias that some of you are doing, you could do worse than to see these ten films.

Almost Famous
This one has aged well. Cameron Crowe’s love letter to his misspent youth and his days as a nascent rock journalist contains career-best performances from Kate Hudson, Zooey Deschanel, Billy Crudup, Noah Taylor, and Jason Lee, and a sweetness we normally don’t expect to find in a movie about rock and roll groupies.

Best in Show
Christopher Guest’s streak of hilarious mockumentaries just makes me wish he had made more films. Sure, last year’s Spinal Tap II: The End Continues was very good, but isn’t it a fool’s errand to try and make a sequel (41 years after the fact) to one of the greatest comedies of all time? Still, we can be respectfully thankful for the Guest films we do have: the original Spinal Tap; Waiting for Guffman; this, the “dog show one”; A Mighty Wind; and For Your Consideration. That’s quite a streak. Parker Posey’s pet store meltdown is one of the funniest scenes ever put on film.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
I still remember Steve Martin’s joke from the Oscar ceremony that year, ““I saw the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but I was confused because I didn’t see any tigers, or any dragons. And then I realized why: The tiger was crouching, and the dragon... was hidden.” I also remember the amazing original reaction to this terrific film. It became a huge success, grossing $128 million in the United States, the highest-grossing foreign film in American history to that point. Crouching Tiger was the first non-English language film to ever make more than $100 million at the US box office.

High Fidelity
Patrick and I devoted an entire podcast to this wonderful little film thirteen short years ago. You can listen to it here. Also, deleted scenes are available on the YouTube machine. Watch the one with Beverly D'Angelo. It’s a hoot.

Nurse Betty
Why doesn’t anyone remember or talk about this black, black comedy anymore? It’s the great, lost film of the year 2000. A diner waitress (Renee Zellweger) has a nervous breakdown after witnessing some very traumatic events and believes she is living in her favorite soap opera. Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock play hitmen. It was directed by Neil LaBute.

Shadow of the Vampire
What if Max Schreck’s performance as a vampire in the original Nosferatu is so uncanny and frightening... because Schreck was a real vampire? Discuss.

Unbreakable
M. Night Shyamalan’s batshit crazy paean to superhero comics is one-of-a-kind. I remember seeing it the day it opened and just sitting there, open-mouthed in the theater, wondering just what the fuck this was. Then, the film explains itself. Whoa. A stealthy, dark masterpiece.

Wonder Boys
A profound little comedy/drama from Curtis Hanson about a burned-out college professor (Michael Douglas) and his students/minions. One of the few non-Marvel movies to feature both Iron Man AND Spider-Man. Highly recommended.

X-Men
Rogue: “When they come out...Does it hurt?”
Wolverine: “Every time.”

You Can Count on Me
The film that first revealed to the world the acting prowess of one Mark Ruffalo, this terrific family drama was written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan. It also features Laura Linney, Matthew Broderick, and Rory Culkin. It was released as a 4K Criterion Collection title last summer. Go get it.

This list is making me sadly nostalgic. Remember when EVERY year had dozens of great films? Yeah, I do too. Comment below with your favorites from Y2K!

Songs I Love From Movies I've Seen Recently

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0600

by Adam Riske

Some great tracks to listen to while you pre-game for F This Movie Fest on March 7th!

Song: “Cosmic Castaway”
From: Titan A.E.
Artist: Electrasy

Titan A.E. is one of those movies I so desperately want to like even though my mind wanders every 30 seconds while I’m watching it. What I do like about it is the 2D animation mixed with early 3D animation, which gives the movie a Heavy Metal type of vibe in its best moments. Speaking of best moments, the soundtrack to this movie kicks ass. My favorite tune on the OST is this one. I don’t understand anything they’re saying other than “chemical freeway” and “cosmic castaway” but that doesn’t matter – Don Bluth wanted to rock out at the turn of the century, and I was right there with him.

Song: “Free”
From: Bait
Artist: Mya

The queen of soundtracks is back! Mya had some run with “Take Me There” from The Rugrats Movie, “Ghetto Supastar” from Bulworth, and “Lady Marmalade” from Moulin Rouge!, and right in between those is this jam from the end credits of Bait. That movie’s ok. I remember it played on my college movie channel and like twenty of us crammed into a dorm room to watch it together. While it was going, a drunk girl from my dorm kept wanting me to go off with her and I was like “Not now. It’s Bait. I missed this in its short theatrical run.” Then like a week later my parents came to visit me at school and in front of them this girl thanked me for not taking advantage of her. It was like the most complimentary and awkward thing that could happen in front of your parents. The 2:24 mark onward makes me wish I knew how to roller skate better. This is gonna sound weird, but I feel like if I were a celebrity around the year 2000 that Mya and I would have been friends. Same with Shawn Hatosy and I would have been just as surprised as you were.

Song: “Twiggy Twiggy”
From: Charlie’s Angels (2000)
Artist: Pizzicato Five

If I’m being honest, I didn’t discover this song from Charlie’s Angels (2000) but instead from an episode of Beavis and Butt-Head back in the day. I’m including it here because after I heard it on that show, I spent years trying to find it, but I could never remember who it was by or what it was called. Cut to the year 2000, I’m in the theater watching Charlie’s Angels and it’s playing in the background during a party scene and yet I still can’t figure out what the song was called or who it was by (I needed Shazam!). A recent rewatch of Charlie’s Angels at Patrick’s Smash Cut series brought all this back and luckily, I now know what the song is and can queue it up on YouTube whenever I need it. It’s so good and fun! I especially love it when it gets all Austin Powers-y at the 2:56 mark. This is like Asian Nouvelle Vague.

Song: “Stop the Rock”
From: Boys and Girls
Artist: Apollo Four Forty

This song takes me back to being 18 years old more than most other songs. I’m embarrassed to say I looked and acted pretty much entirely like the people dancing in this club scene. I miss the days when Freddie Prinze Jr. movies all had choreographed dance sequences in clubs or at prom. We had it all. Speaking of having it all, good lord is Claire Forlani a fox in Boys and Girls. I don’t get why Freddie is spazzing out at the start of this scene. If a girl takes you to a club dressed like how Forlani is dressed, you fucking lock in. Your body will just take over even if your mind is being sucks lame. Did you know “Stop the Rock” was also featured in Gone in 60 Seconds, Loser, Bedazzled, Saving Silverman, and Chasing Liberty? The title wasn’t just lip service.

Song: “Carnival”
From: Ella McCay
Artist: The Cardigans

A fantastic song I discovered during my theater viewing of my beloved Ella McCay. I heard it in the theater and was like “WHAT SONG IS THIS?! IT’S GREAT!” I tried for weeks to figure out what it was, waiting for IMDB to put out the track list on the Ella page to no avail. I was Googling “come on and and love me now” and “Ella McCay” and getting incorrect results. Somehow, I eventually figured it out and my life has been better ever since. P.S. I had a similar experience with the song “Lovefool” by The Cardigans. I was at the Woodfield Mall McDonald’s with a family member back in 1996 when I heard that song and I had to put down my cheeseburger and was like “I don’t know what this is, but this band is going to be the biggest group in the world.”

Song: “Ready or Not Here I Come (Can’t Hide From Love)”
From: One Battle After Another
Artist: Jackson 5

Don’t get me wrong. I like One Battle After Another BUT I think this song is entirely responsible for me locating that movie’s heart. This is somehow a Jackson 5 song I didn’t know about, and it just floored me the first time I heard it. It plays over the sequence where Leonardo DiCaprio’s character is helped escape a hospital and gets picked up by Benicio Del Toro’s character and the combination of the emotion of the song mixed with the strength, bravery and kindness of the gestures I was watching got me choked up. It’s like the purest example I can describe as how music can take a movie into the heavens.

Song: “I Care ‘Bout You”
From: Soul Food
Artist: Milestone

One of my favorite new discoveries from last year was the movie Soul Food and part of that was this banger by the supergroup Milestone, which consists of not only Babyface and Melvin and Kevon Edmonds from After 7, but K-Ci & JoJo and Michael fucking Beach! I even bought a Babyface MTV Unplugged album so I could listen to the live version of this song in my car. It’s phenomenal. I like that the music video starts with a big Milestone truck because if I saw that on the street I would chase after it like children run after the ice cream man. P.S. Everybody quiet at the 2:34 mark, it’s Cousin Faith!

Song: “Hanging On For Dear Life”
From: My Boyfriend’s Back
Artist: MMC

Late in Scary Movie Month I rewatched My Boyfriend’s Back, a forgotten zombie romantic comedy from 1993 that I’ve always kind of liked. On this watch, I noticed a song Traci Lind and Andrew Lowery (killer from Color of Night, co-writer of Boys and Girls) were slow dancing to towards the end of the movie and was like “Fuck! That song’s a jam. It’s hitting me in my feels.” I went on IMDB and was like “Huh, it’s by MMC. I’ve never heard of them.” So, then I Google MMC and yep, it’s the new Mickey Mouse Club. So, yeah, I was genuinely moved at age 43 by a song sung by the new Mickey Mouse Club. We all have stories.

Weekend Open Thread

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 02:00:00 -0600

Review: WUTHERING HEIGHTS

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0600

by Rob DiCristino

You didn’t read it? Don’t worry, neither did she.

Let’s begin with a disclaimer that’s sure to make writer/director Emerald Fennell cream in what I presume are her very stylish and expensive jeans: As an English major, language arts teacher, and lifelong fan of, you know, books, I found myself utterly flabbergasted by her new adaptation of Emily Brontë 1847 novel, Wuthering Heights. Fennell would say that disgust is by design, of course as the Saltburn filmmaker has made no bones about how much she gets off on challenging fuddy-duddy sensibilities like mine, how much she delights in provoking the “elites” who dismiss her work as misguided fluff that, among other sins, unintentionally reaffirms the social inequalities she seems to think she’s critiquing. As if in wholehearted celebration of that budding reputation, her Wuthering Heights is a lurid and trashy Tumblr-core fan edit of Brontë’s novel that omits roughly ten major characters, about a hundred pages of story, and nearly all of the gothic horror that make it such an enduring masterpiece. But again, that’s all precisely the point, which means that Wuthering Heights is also the most rousing success of Emerald Fennell’s nascent career.

We begin on the Yorkshire moors, where the boisterous and abusive drunkard Mr. Earnshaw (Martin Clunes) owns a remote farming estate known as Wuthering Heights. One day, to the delight of his young daughter, Catherine (Charlotte Mellington), and the chagrin of his household staff (headed by Vy Nguyen’s Nelly), Earnshaw returns from Liverpool with an unscrubbed, illiterate foundling whom Catherine names Heathcliff (Owen Cooper). The two are immediately inseparable, nurturing a mutual attraction that grows as the imperious Catherine molds the dowdy Heathcliff in her image. Decades later, the insolvent Earnshaws look to Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif) — the wealthy owner of nearby Thrushcross Grange — for salvation, and Heathcliff (now Jacob Elordi) watches in horror as Catherine (now Margot Robbie) manipulates the posh dolt into proposing marriage. He then sets off on a quest for redemption, returning with new clothes, a mysterious fortune, and a solemn vow to make Catherine regret telling Nelly (now Hong Chau) that he was unworthy of her affections.

A typical interpretation of Wuthering Heights would characterize it as a haunting tale of generational trauma, a story about the pathological entanglement between two people whose unquenchable thirst for mutually-assured destruction brings chaos and misery to every unfortunate bystander in their orbit. Brontë’s novel is a darkly ironic critique of Victorian class mores, to be sure, but it also illustrates the spiritual dimensions of romantic passion and argues that those societal guardrails are hopeless in the face of our self-destructive nature. By seeding Heathcliff’s Byronic heroism in his outcast status — a loneliness born of his low birth and fueled by Catherine’s rejection and the abuse of her brother, Hindley — Brontë reinforces the hopeless inevitability of his moral corruption. For her part, the volatile, mercurial Catherine’s refusal to rectify her social ambition with her compulsive attachment dooms her to a life of tragedy, a familial curse that can only be lifted by a next generation of children armed with the empathy to buck these vicious trends.

In Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, on the other hand, Catherine gets so turned on by her cook kneading bread dough that she rushes outside in her skirts to rub one out behind a tree. Later — probably while reminiscing about the time she watched a pair of servants get kinky with the leather straps of a horse’s facemask — she fondles the gaping mouth of a dead fish laid out on her dinner table. Oh, then there’s a scene where Heathcliff explains that he can track Catherine by the smell of her lady juices. That scene, of course — OF COURSE — comes just before he enslaves his wife Isabella (Allison Oliver) in such an orgiastic thrall of sexual delight that she’s willing to chain herself to the fireplace and bark like a dog at anyone who approaches the house. Yes, it seems that no one in this Wuthering Heights is able to crack an egg without contemplating how to use the yolks as lubricant, which, while it may not leave room to explore the texture of Brontë’s source material, does fit in with the “middle school journal” vibe Fennell brings to her entire filmography.

And as that filmography takes shape, we’re getting a better picture of its essential childishness, the myopic perspectives on sex, death, and morality that reflect Fennell’s impatience with the complexity and nuance that make the works she tends to adapt — if not straight-up steal from — so affecting. Instead of interrogating the destructive nature of Catherine and Heathcliff’s obsessions, Fennell’s maximalist orgy of a film celebrates the romance of their tragedy in the grandest possible terms. Designed and lensed with the opulence of a Baz Luhrmann epic and scored with electropop from Charli XCX, the film isn’t so much Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights as it is Catherine and Heathcliff’s, a truncated, Tik Tok-friendly version in which their behavior is ultimately excusable because there is no second generation to suffer their consequences. Fennell isn’t the first filmmaker to omit the back half of the novel, of course — that goes back to William Wyler’s 1939 original — but it’s a choice that only compounds the brainless immaturity of her approach to the material.

But, look. You and I both know that you’re not here for my scholastic analysis. You want to know if Wuthering Heights is as hot and steamy as the trailers suggest. You want to know what the sex scenes are like. Are there any boobies? Does Jacob Elordi hang dong? The answer is no! It’s all pretty tame! That’s the trouble with Fennell’s adolescent, smut-forward approach, isn’t it? Because as anyone who’s ever actually had sex knows, the anticipation is most of the fun, and nothing in Fennell’s love scenes — which are basically limited to one montage shot waist-up under flowery bodices— could possibly compete with all the quivering anticipation that comes before. Don’t get me wrong: Jacob Elordi is a fucking stud — the first shot of him post-transformation elicited a literal gasp from my preview audience — but even his glowering gets tiresome by the two-hour mark, especially since Fennell’s adaptation denies Heathcliff most of the sociopathic insanity that normally makes the role such an actor’s delight. Robbie, too, is shortchanged, as Fennell only has the attention span for about half of Catherine’s famous “I am Heathcliff” monologue.

With all that said — and trust me, there’s a lot more that I haven’t said — Wuthering Heights is nonetheless the most self-assured film of Emerald Fennell’s career, a composed, engaging, and entertaining piece of pop art that synthesizes her LiveJournal ethos with an undeniable talent for staging and composition. She may lack the insight or inspiration to become one of our great auteurs, but she’s developing a clear eye for what a movie is supposed to feel like — how to elicit a laugh from a clever edit and light gorgeous actors like movie stars. Her Wuthering Heights may be a profoundly dumb exercise that relies on the juvenile brand of tantalization that we typically leave behind after high school, but that won’t make it any less of a box office smash this Valentine’s Day, no less of a cheeky antidote to whatever “sex is bad, actually” discourse is floating around Zoomer channels on whatever social media channel they’re using these days. I’ll be damned if I know, but then, it’s not for me. Neither is Fennell’s Wuthering Heights. Don’t worry about me, though. I know how to read.

Wuthering Heights hits U.S. theaters today, February 13th.