Only four tickets are left for Across the Movie Aisle live, on Tuesday, May 16 at 7:30 PM at the Crystal City Alamo Drafthouse. (They’re marked as handicapped but there are actual chairs there and the rest of the tickets are sold out, so they’re fair game.) We’re showing WarGames and then talking about it (and other apocalypse-minded movies) afterward. Tickets are just $7! If we don’t sell it out, Paul Newman’s gonna have my legs broke!
This week, Sonny Bunch (The Bulwark), Alyssa Rosenberg (The Washington Post), and Peter Suderman (Reason) discuss how the writer’s strike is going to impact the present by looking at how it changed the industry in the past. If it goes on for more than a few months, I hope you’re ready for a spate of reality programming the likes of which we’ve never seen before. Then we review the summer’s first blockbuster: Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3. As three folks who have grown a little tired of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we were all pleasantly surprised. But is it too little too late for the Once-Mighty Marvel Machine? And make sure to swing by for the bonus episode on Friday, when we’ll be previewing the rest of the summer. Big movies, small movies, medium-sized movies: it’s a Goldilocks summer, folks. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend!
How did you all forget the mix-tapes used in all the movies to set a mood, help tell a story, or change the motion/story? Especially Blue Swede's "Hooked on a Feeling" in the first movie, it pulled everyone into Star-Lord's universe. Was dope move. They had me at that song and then James made me weep with that awesome ending with "Dog Days Are Over" by Florence and the Machine. tied the journey all up and... BAM, sadness that it was over.
The music is very important in Gunn's movies
Eek! Spoiler alert! Don’t listen to the Guardians of the Galaxy part at the end of this podcast unless you’ve seen the movie already or don’t mind having an idea about what’s going to happen. 🙃
The writers aren’t asking much, and as someone w/writerly aspirations, I think ppl should be paid for their work. As far as I’m concerned, the writers are the good guys and should be whole-heartedly supported, irrespective of complaints about not seeing my fave shows (which tend to be mostly British anyway.) More time to read (or, God help us all, write) a book.
Being deep in physical media of European genre film, I'll burrow further into long passed, strange entertainment.
This writer's strike could be a blessing in disguise for the MCU.
I've kind of tuned out of it, partly because of some subpar recent movies, but also because there's simply so much MCU content that I haven't been able to keep up with it. If this strike drags out and no new MCU movies or shows can be made, that gives us some much-needed time to get caught up, and when something new *does* come out after a long delay it will break box office records.
I remember when the 007 series went on hiatus after the tepidly received (and underrated) Timothy Dalton movies. When the trailer for GoldenEye dropped six years later, theater audiences literally cheered and the film became a massive hit, because people had been given time to miss James Bond.
I hope Disney stops tying the Marvel movies so tightly to the Marvel mini-series shows airing on Disney+. Not everyone subscribes to Disney+, and it's offputting to the more casual movie viewers to discover they're missing bits of information or character development because they never saw a particular mini-series.
I also hope they slow down and let us get to know the new characters BEFORE plunging them into another "Save the Universe!" crossover adventure. There were a lot of standalone movies and smaller crossovers (Avengers) before the big finale of Infinity War and Endgame, and that is the reason those two movies worked.