Interesting when Studio Ghibli is more real than our standard CGI schlock.

Original airdate: 3 - 18 -13
After another unexpected off-week, we return to the airwaves with thick cynicism cloying like the phlegm in our throats. It had been a rough week, and we barely had the stamina to opine. The Boom rehashed the shitty Oz movie he saw last week before we both took a look at Studio Ghibli's From Up on Poppy Hill, the sophomore effort from Goro Miyazaki and his impossible-to-fill shoes. After the abysmal disappointment of his Earthsea film, I was really worried for Goro, who wisely toned down his content and ambition for this film, which was more akin to earlier, non-fantasy Ghibli fare like Only Yesterday. The animation certainly improved tenfold from Earthsea, with a focus on detail and minutiae that defines Ghibli as a dominant animation studio. The story, however, of semi-forbidden love and heritage between two (barely) post-adolescents, doesn't quite hit the emotional singularity in quite so possessing a fashion, but this was a step up in what will hopefully be a fruitful and unhampered-by-expectation film career.

We heard music from the following:

Porco Rosso, 1995 - Joe Hisaishi
To Live and Die in L.A., 1985 - Wang Chung
Trainspotting, 1995 - Various
The Wiz, 1978 - Various

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March Madness begins!

Original Airdate: 3 - 4- 13
I wonder what cinematic treasures await us in March? Let's have a gander! I mean...nothing can be worse than January or February, right? I mean, Hansel and Gretel, Noobz, Beautiful Creatures, Safe Haven... What? Why are you looking at me like that? What's this here? InAPPropriate? Hey, that could be funny! Rob Schneider, huh? Well, I mean, he was in Necessary Roughness, so...ok, who else? Lindsay Lohan? She's alive? Oh god, she looks like an irradiated mannequin! What's this about? A fucking sketch film is still being made in 2013?! And it's directed by the guy that beat down a hooker and sold us a "Slap-Chop" and asked us to love his nuts? Oh, oh god. Well, given the blistering success of The Groove Tube and Movie 43...ok, fuck you, what else is coming out?

White T? Two morbidly obese children try to rap with Deion Sanders? Can you give me something that wasn't a film pitched by a mongoloid with fetal alcohol syndrome? Or something with a budget or actors I've heard of?

Ah, here we go: Phantom. Harris and Duchovny as Russians in a submarine, but totally nothing like U-571, K-12, or Crimson Tide or Das...fine, you win again.

Anything else? Oh, right. Another Stephanie Meyer movie. The movie about an alien invasion and a love triangle. Fine, get the hacksaw, I don't want my jugular if this is what I have to look forward to theatrically.

So that's my imaginary conversation about the wonderful theatrical releases in the month of March, as well as he reason why The Boom Operator and I saw zero films this week. Me, I'm still working through some of the documentary/foreign flicks of last year, which are offering me a bit more than, say 21 and Over.

Oh, and we're screening Miami Connection this week at Smoke 'n Barrel, so we are awesome.

We heard music from:

Karate Warrior II, 1988 - Stefano Mainetti
Army of Darkness, 1992 - Joseph DoLuca
Six-String Samurai, 1998 - Brian Tyler
Miami Connection, 1987 - Various

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Those Oscars are rehhtahhded.

Original Airdate: 2 - 25 - 13
Some guy with a Boston accent who likes to say "rehhtahhhhded" with a Boston accent, vastly overestimating how funny that is, hosted last night's Academy Awards and offended quite a few people by doing exactly what they hired him to do and making in-winks at how offensive he was. He made a lot of people upset for saying and doing exactly what they paid him to do. I'll be.

We talked about the Oscars, of course, all the predictable wins and losses and all the self-congratulatory weaponized hegemonic culture that Hollywood represents. I went on my usual rants regarding the Best Picture/Director dichotomy and its unintentional critique of auteur theory; the freaking stupid, disingenuous system for Best Foreign Language film; and globalization as manifested by the bankruptcy of this year's Best Visual Effects winner (Rhythm and Hues). And some other stuff, I forget, but you should listen. -Gaffer

We heard music from:

Life of Pi, 2012 - Mychael Danna

Gladiator, 2000 - Hans Zimmer

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