'Tis the season to start thinking about holiday-themed movies, and for the last episode of the third year of Alternate Ending's podcast, we're going to look at our very favorite movie Santas: possibly deranged men at malls, lonely skeletons, suburban dads with the unimaginable power to murder demigods. Or, like actual Santa Claus, if that's your jam for some reason. We're making our lists and checking them twice, and while you wait for us to come down the chimney with our 2018 season finale.
In Worth Mentioning we cover Aquaman, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Leave No Trace.
The world is in trouble, and only one very special hero, chosen by fate, can possibly save it. We could be talking about next week's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. We could also be talking about next week's Mortal Engines. We could be talking as well about Aquaman or Bumblebee from the week after that. We could, in fact, be talking about a whole hell of a lot of movies: the Chosen One narrative is one of the most overused tropes in contemporary American filmmaking. But just because something is ubiquitous doesn't mean it can't be good too, and we're going to sort through the unfathomably large pile of Very Special Unique Magical Angel Babies to find the best and brightest, the Chosen-est Ones of all.
In Worth Mentioning, we cover Tito and the Birds and Sherlock Jr.
Thanks to Patreon supporter Travis Neeley, this week's episode sends us to a pair of the campiest monster movies ever made. First up is Roger Corman's bizarre 1960 comedy The Little Shop of Horrors, about a lovelorn nebbish who accidentally creates an unstoppable, man-eating plant. Second is the 1986 Little Shop of Horrors, in which Frank Oz tackles Howard Ashman and Alan Menken's cultishly beloved, warped stage musical adaptation of the Corman film.
In Worth Mentioning, we cover The Christmas Chronicles.
Family vacations and holiday plans won't keep us from unearthing another episode from the archives with our Top 5 Thanksgiving movies.
Wreck-It Ralph, Disney's lovable villain of an '80s arcade game, goes extremely online in Ralph Breaks the Internet, and to celebrate, we're plugging in with our favorite examples of the relationship between humans, computers, and that amazing, awful thing called the internet. From '90s hackers to '00s social media pioneers, we're going to be counting down all of our favorite examples of people who really probably ought to, like, read a book sometime.
In Worth Mentioning, Widows, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and The Grinch are covered.
Fantastic Beasts: The Grimes of Grindelwald takes us back to the Harry Potter universe, which love it or hate it, surely we must all agree it's one of the most comprehensively designed movie universes that has ever existed. And in celebration of the amazing feat of production design that this franchise has represented, we're taking a look at our very favorite movie universes: the places so beautiful, so comfortable, so fantastic, so homey, so all-around gosh-darned appealing that, if given the opportunity, we'd happily jump right through the screen and live with the characters.
In Worth Mentioning we cover both Suspiria (2018) and Suspiria (1977), thanks to Patreon Kevin J. Olson, and Bohemian Rhapsody.
Thanks to Patreon subscriber Paul Royar, we have a very special Election Week present for you: our picks for the very best political movies ever made! Of course, "political" can mean a lot of things: films about the machinations of doing politics, or about the lives of politicians, or about important political questions of the day. Find out how each of us tackled the tricky business of answering the question, "what is a political movie".
In Worth Mentioning we cover Beautiful Boy, The Other Side of the Wind and The French Connection thanks to Patreon subscriber Julian DeBerry!
With Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody about to rock its way into theaters, we're thinking about the most glam decade of them all, the 1970s. We look at our favorite films that capture that decade in all its cocaine-fueled highs and equally cocaine-fueled lows. Be they time capsules from the '70s themselves or modern attempts to capture the swagger and madness of that decade, we'll be discoing our way through all of them.
In Worth Mentioning we cover Bad Time at the El Royale and The Old Man & the Gun.
With Rob traveling for work the AE crew takes an oldie, but a goodie out of the archives with Top 5 Witch Movies.
The new Halloween (third film of that title) brings back Michael Meyers, one of the most infamous of all movie psycho killers. In anticipation of the piles of dead babysitters sure to follow, we're going to scare ourselves silly by telling tales of all our favorite movie psychos, serial killers, slashers, and every sort of person of murd'rous intent.
In Worth Mentioning, the crew covers Venom, First Man and The Endless.
Neil Armstrong biopic First Man is about to rocket into theaters, and we're celebrating by talking about our absolute favorite movies set in the inky black vacuum of space. Sci-fi swashbucklers, rigorously sober scientific true stories - if it celebrates the infinite wonders of the universe, it's fair game.
In Worth Mentioning we cover two new releases with A Star is Born and Night School.
Lady Gaga goes off the deep end in the fourth version of A Star Is Born. While we watch as she dives in, and wonder if she'll ever meet the ground, we're going to spend some time looking at the other times that musical superstars have taken their turn at acting. From Cher in Moonstruck, to Cher in Silkwood, to Cher in Burlesque, to Cher in The Witches of Eastwickor, if you're some kind of absolute fucking sicko, to somebody who is not Cher.
In Worth Mentioning we cover Mandy, Hold the Dark and Life Itself.
With the release The Sisters Brothers and a modern take on Little Women also coming to theaters soon, cinema clearly has sisters on the mind right now, and to celebrate, we're look at our favorite screen sisters.
Whether it's teaming up to bring your estranged parents back together, working out your sibling rivalry while playing semi-pro baseball, or discovering that you and all your best friends can wear the same pair of jeans, we are excited to discuss all the triumphs and travails of cinematic sisterhood.
In Worth Mentioning, the crew discusses A Simple Favor.
We're in the last stage of the year, with family pictures, Oscar hopefuls, and popcorn movies all jostling for attention. To get ready, the Alternate Ending crew picks the films we're most excited to see between now and the end of the year, from Lady Gaga's starring debut to Emily Blunt's attempt to step into Julie Andrews's practically perfect shoes.
In Worth Mentioning we cover The Predator, To All the Boys I've Loved Before and The Land of Steady Habits.
We’re back! And recharged from our time off, we’re ready to recap the films of the summer just gone by. Dinosaurs, helicopters, superheroes, crazy rich Asians, racial strife in Oakland, and the beatific face of Fred Rogers – we go over it all on our way to pick our favorite films of the season.
In Worth Mentioning, Tim discusses The Nun.
Alpha is here to teach us all about how dogs were invented by a lonely cave boy who found himself staring down a wolf with a broken leg. Thousands of year's later, man's best friend has been the subject of countless film, almost every one of which is specifically calculated to make you cry buckets. For our last episode of the summer season, we'll be looking our favorite movie dogs in our favorite dog movies.
In Worth Mentioning, we cover The Spy Who Dumped Me, Tallulah and Froning: The Fittest Man in History.
Inspired by the subaquatic lab at the center of the upcoming "Jason Statham vs. a prehistoric shark" movie The Meg, the Alternate Ending crew is happy to announce our most esoteric topic yet. This episode is all about water in movies: the aesthetics of water, the challenges of shooting on water, the things live in the water, Kevin Costner drinking his own piss.
In Worth Mentioning we cover Christopher Robin, Blindspotting and Like Father.
Disney's Christopher Robin continues the company's decades-long project of co-opting every last smackeral of A.A. Milne's 100-Acre Wood in the mind of children the world over. While we wait to learn first hand that a little boy and his bear will indeed always be playing, we've decided to take a look at movies based on classic books, with our favorite films based on children's literature.
In Worth Mentioning we cover Mission: Impossible - Fallout, Sorry to Bother You and The Equalizer 2.
Tom Cruise has done everything but commit actual seppukuon-camera for our spectatorial enjoyment, so we're excited to see what he has in store for us in Mission: Impossible - Fallout. While we get more and more hyped to watch him break his damn bones right there in the movie, we're going to take a look at our other favorite stunts from across movie history: the ridiculous car flips, high jumps, and hanging-from-clocks that brazen fucking idiots have put themselves through for the rest of us to say "well, that was cool" as we eat ice cream on the couch.
In Worth Mentioning, we all talk Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, Eighth Gradeand Blockers.
It's an all-singing, all-dancing episode of Alternate Ending next week, as we celebrate - or at least, acknowledge the existence of - the upcoming Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again by looking through our all-time favorite movie musicals. Whether it's singin' in the rain or singin' in a Nazi biergarten, we pay tribute to the showstoppingest movie genre of them all.
In Worth Mentioning we discuss Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacationand White Fang.
We're pretty far into summer at this point, and if you haven't already been on vacation, you might be thinking it's about time to take one. In this episode, we discuss our favorite vacation movies. Whether it's exotic destinations and the wacky misadventures that happen there, or maybe just the pleasure of staying home with nothing to do, as long as it's getting out of the daily routine, it's enough of a vacation for us.
In Worth Mentioning, we cover Ant-Man and the Wasp, Sicario: Day of the Saldodo and American Animals.
Despite it having been made pretty clear in the dialogue of the first three movies in the Purgefranchise, we finally to get to see what happened during The First Purge. It's the only excuse we need to look back at our own favorite prequels, that most wonderful narrative form that combines the pandering of a forced sequel with the thrill of knowing exactly how the plot is going to end even before it starts.
In Worth Mentioning, we discuss Won't You Be My Neighbor?and Hearts Beat Loud.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdomis here, the fourth follow-up to a movie uniquely near and dear to the heart of every '90s kid. We happen to have three such individuals ready to talk about the whole series, from 1993's iconic Jurassic Park all the way up to the massive 2015 blockbuster Jurassic World, and its shiny new sequel.
In Worth Mentioning, the AE crew discusses Hereditary, Tag and A Kid Like Jake.
Remake mania claimed its latest victim with Superfly, a new version of the beloved 1972 blaxplotation classic Super Flythat, in keeping with the faster pace of modern life, does away with the space in the title. Over the years, dating all the way back to the silent era, in fact, there have been so many remakes that some of them musthave been worth it, and the team is going to bring new meaning to the phrase "discovering good movies, one bad movie at a time" in trying to separate the wheat from a whole shitload of chaff.
In Worth Mentioning, we catch up with Incredibles 2,Tomb Raider and Superfly.
The Incredibles 2 is coming this weekend, at which point the one Pixar film that people actuallywant a sequel to will finally have one. This leaves a void: what are the otherfilms in this ridiculous, sequel-mad era of ours that somehow haven't gotten a follow-up, but nonetheless deserve one?
In Worth Mentioning, the crew discusses Ocean's 8and Rob talks about the sci-fi indie flick Upgrade.