Are You Movie Mad?

Johnny’s love of Quentin Tarantino returns as he makes Andrew watch a doc about the director’s films (besides Hollywood) and sheds new light on the whole Weinstein situation. This is a light entertainment podcast recording during a lockdown heatwave.

Well, it’s been a long time coming, the latest Judd Apatow film dropped online a few weeks back, and Andrew was psyched. Johnny tags along like it’s a regular day at the cinema, and comes away contemplating Pete Davidson’s comedy, and the potency of Bill Burr as an actor.

It’s hard to find something new in this weird dead world, but Disney+ bring a film intended for August 2019 straight to streaming a year later, and Andrew and Johnny see it as reason enough to give it a go. Stay for Johnny’s Irish roots which makes Andrew’s Irish accent even MORE offensive, in these trying times.

A light spry comedy with Robin Williams is just the tonic this world needs, so Andrew throws Johnny into the proverbial deep end with a Bobcat Goldthwait picture, and discusses the times he attempted to bring a second Williams/Goldthwait project to the forefront, because nostalgia and distraction are all we have left in this rotting world of ours.

On the eve of The King Of Staten Island it’s time to check into Apatown for one more swing for the fences, and a 145 minute Adam Sandler cancer drama. Can Johnny make it through the extended runtime? Can Andrew make it through the extended lockdown? Are rhetorical questions good for adding mystery?

How silly can you get? Well, for Andrew and Johnny this is about the lockdown limit of silly. Coming off discovering 2 different planned films were no longer available to watch, plan C has gone into action, and comedy, and spy thriller, and musical, and all genres to fit in Val Kilmer’s crooning teen-hearthrob-hero Cold War spoof movie.

It’s digital release day for Cats in the UK and Johnny is all fur-ious that he’s not watching it with Andrew, and Andrew wishes he could paws life for the 2 hours it takes to sit through Tom Hooper’s Cats. Come join the experience through heaven or hell or heavyside layer, no matter your thoughts on the musical, you can all understand what listening to a tortured soul sounds like.

Andrew brings back Casey Ryback as Johnny tries to remember what it was like to be Under Siege the first time. Andrew also dishes out information on how to be Under Siege in Dark Territory, and how the film uses various semiotic, metaphoric and visual ways to create a siege that is in dark territory, and that is under said siege. It’s very clever.

Johnny loves this 150 minute frontier horror, and insists Andrew saddle up for a ride into hell and back, promising that Retribution Is Coming. Andrew, meanwhile, breaks down and contemplates what a serial killer horse could get away with back in olden times. Yep. That’s how the lockdown’s going, folks.

Andrew’s 30th birthday celebrations are isolated to watching films with friends, and Johnny’s plan to surround Andrew with many furry ones has succumbed instead to popping on Disney+ and watching the Glenn Close live-action comedy. Andrew hasn’t seen the film, has no connection to the work, it is not a meaningful choice by any stretch, but come watch the film with Andrew and Johnny. Fun, games, furs and frivolities included.

A second trip to Apatown, a month after Knocked Up it’s the sort-of sequel, whilst preparing for Judd’s next film The King Of Staten Island coming in June. Discussion leads to aging, marriage, Lost and improvisational Mad Max.

The quarantine has adjusted everything somewhat, but no worry, there’s always a Brendan Fraser film to fall back on, and plenty of memories of Ian McKellen’s days feline up London with this Frankenstein of an episode where puns are always at play.

Oh gotti, protect us. Andrew insists on watching a film directed by E from Entourage, and brings Johnny down with him. John Travolta plays a mob boss, but the real crime is against cinema, as the duo work out if films are bad or the isolation is just driving insanity further and further into our skulls.

Andrew throws on one of his all-time comfort comedies, and Johnny’s expectations are completely subverted as Seth Rogen puts a baby into our hearts. Snippets of The Irishman meeting It and ideas for additional sort-of sequels within the Apatowverse are presented to warn off insanity mid-quarantine.

Johnny takes the stage in an impromptu schedule shift, as The Tenderloins’ hit TV show reaches the big screen (A digital release because there are no ‘big screens’ anymore, up is down, cats and dogs are marrying my mother!), and insists we watch Impractical Jokers - The Movie just after its worldwide April Fool’s Day release. Andrew finds understanding in quality TV-To-Film adaptations and reality-meets-sketch hybrid creations, whilst Johnny hurts himself laughing.

We’re all isolated across the globe, but for this week it’s a trip to the desolate Mojave, as Gore Verbinski’s Oscar-winning western animated adventure comes into view. Talking family movies, quarantine life and the career of the Pirates Of The Caribbean director, maybe some sanity will be found here.

As Covid-19 has put us all in self-isolation, the usual episode feeling of being together, feeding off one-another’s energy is out the window. Testing out online recording for future use, Andrew and Johnny talk Better Call Saul (SPOILERS), Disney+, hint at next week’s episode and Johnny Cash of course comes up once again.

Sitting on the shelf after a long time, we release an episode on Kenneth Lonergan’s much-delayed epic human drama, where Johnny has some sort of comprehensive understanding of humanity and the universe, and Andrew reminisces on the single-screen opening day in London.

Robert Altman’s final film comprises death, country music and a huge cast. Are You Movie Mad?’s episode on Robert Altman’s final film comprises watching films, not singing music very well and two people in a room. It’s like yin meets yang!

The perfect bank robbery film deserves the perfect podcast episode. But for now, this’ll have to do, as Johnny gets another Spike Lee Joint under his belt, and Andrew remembers the wonderful times of 2006 cinema, when Clive Owen could do just about anything, except be Bond.