Magellans at the Movies

Say you’ve just woken up in the late 18th century. Lucky for you, you find yourself the rich scion of a notable family, which, in said time period, means you’ve got it made. The only thing you’ll be lacking is something to occupy your time with. The military being too scary, the theater being too derivative, and the video games being too nonexistent, there’s every chance you’ll find yourself quickly becoming a regular at your local opera house. But wait, what’s this? An upstart young musician named Mozart has just arrived in Vienna? Whatever could this mean for court politics, for music, and for culture at large? Well, you’ll know better than the rest of us, because the rest of us have mostly received our answers from Amadeus, a 1984 period piece directed by Milos Forman and featuring a famously loose retelling of history. Since we haven’t been so lucky as to have been transported back in time and books are lame, we’ll have to settle for the film, though to be fair, there are worse trade-offs. Amadeus was a hit at the Oscars and its reputation has only grown since its release, so it was only a matter of time before Magellans at the Movies declared their position on this melodic matinee. One. Two. One, two, three, four and start! Contact us/Requests/Questions: [email protected] Donate: https://paypal.me/magellansmovies?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US

Pandas. If you’re somehow not aware of them (which, like, how, they’re basically the poster-animal for endangered species), they’re not exactly what you’d call limber. While the great felines of the world regularly perform feats of stunning acrobatics and athleticism, those of the ursine persuasion, especially panda bears, are stuck lumbering around with all the speed and agility of a wheelchair made out of bricks. This is fine for Youtube compilations of pandas failing to exhibit a strong grasp of even basic motor skills, but if you’re an enterprising young film studio aiming to center a martial arts series around ailuropoda melanoleuca then I’m afraid animation is your first, last, and only port of call, and you’ll have to do more than a little bit of anthropomorphizing even then. When that’s done what you’re left with is something called Kung Fu Panda, a 2008 animated film directed by Mark Osborne and John Stevenson and the progenitor of the tragically long-lived Kung Fu Panda franchise. Kung Fu Panda was popular enough on release and memories of our heroic black-and-white bear are typically fond, so when lifelong panda fan Nathan Magalhães’s own memories were stoked upon hearing of a fourth (kill me) installment, he and his brother had to return to where it all began to see if it holds up. So, when you’re done Kung Fu fighting along to that earworm of an end credits song, jump kick that play button and get on with the episode!Contact us/Requests/Questions: [email protected]: https://paypal.me/magellensmovies?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US

Peace and quiet. The two go together so well they’re often mentioned in concert, as demonstrated by the preceding sentence. Quiet is often conflated with peace and vice versa, however the relationship between the two may not be as close as people are willing to admit. Few would characterize the bone chilling silence immediately following a bombed joke at a comedy club as “peaceful”, and sometimes even the personal reticence of a taciturn man wearing a placid expression can be little more than a mask hiding great sorrow and uncertainty. But that’s a matter for my therapist, for our purposes you just need to understand that silence may be golden, but it can also be spooky. Nowhere is this more clear than in A Quiet Place, a 2018 horror film directed by John Krasinski. This compact burst of originality and unbearable tension made quite the splash when it frightened annoying old people into silence the world over and proved popular enough to spawn a whole slew of silent sequels. Today, though, we’ll be limiting ourselves to the one that started it all, so get ready to assume your best library decorum and be sure to check your rickety old stairs for rogue spikes of metal. Begin!Contact us/Requests/Questions: [email protected]: https://paypal.me/magellensmovies?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US

The dream of time travel is an old one, with modern storytellers and ancient legend weavers alike casting their imaginations far into the future or deep into the past to see what might be happening or may have happened then. Wouldn’t you like to get burned for being a witch at Salem? Wouldn’t you like to be sacrificed to Huitzilopochtli in the Aztec Empire? Don’t you want to see what fun implements of warfare people come up with a hundred years from now? I sure don’t, but to each their own. I’m being facetious, of course, time travel is supposed to be fun for the whole family! That’s why they made Back to the Future, a famously fun 1985 science fiction adventure movie directed by Rober Zemeckis and “presented” by Stephen Spielberg, whatever that means. Back to the Future is that rare cinematic classic that the Magellans don’t actually have that much experience with, which is why they’ve decided to go back in time to revisit this nostalgia-fueled 80's romp. Where we’re going, we don’t need roads, we just need headphones and patience so crank your sound to 88 decibels and let’s blast off!Contact us/Requests/Questions: [email protected]: https://paypal.me/magellensmovies?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US

As you settle in with your coffee and gummy worms to enjoy another episode of the smash hit podcast Magellans at the Movies, you’re probably thinking about how charismatic and trustworthy your favorite hosts are. You're probably thinking to yourself, "Gee willy those Magellans are cool, I'd do anything they asked me to!" Ah, my naive, innocent reader; although we're flattered, we must caution you against such sentiments. Hero worship rarely leads to heroism, and putting on blinders to the faults in our leaders is a recipe for disaster. For more on this, just look at Dune: Part Two, a 2024 science fiction epic directed by Denis Villeneuve and based on Frank Herbert's novel. Dune: Part Two is a jaw dropping spectacle of a movie, bolstered by a searing message about the dangers of messianic figures, and today, with the help of the third Magellan brother Ryan, they'll be diving into all the blood, dust, and worms for your listening pleasure. Fear is the mind killer, but our podcast is the mind stimulator so let's get cracking!Contact us/Requests/Questions: [email protected]: https://paypal.me/magellensmovies?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US

The Oscars represent the culmination of the film year, much like New Year’s celebrations mark the termination of a calendar year. It’s a time to cast our gaze back over the movies that were, the jokes that made us laugh, the spectacles that made us gasp, and the romances that made us swoon. Or at least the jokes, spectacles, and romances as seen in the movies blessed by the opaque selection processes of a mismatched circle of film personalities of dubious qualification and unreliable judgment. The Oscars certainly aren’t what they used to be in terms of the audience and relevance they can lay claim to, but it’s still an interesting commentary on the state of the medium and a semi-decent way to kill five hours of your time. In anticipation of all that, then, Magellans at the Movies have taken a break from movie reviewing to bring you their thoughts on all things Oscars: the nominees, their respective prospects, and a bit about the ceremony itself. If, for some reason, that sounds fun to you, then I award you the M.A.T.M. award for notable achievement in patience and invite you to begin the episode!Contact us/Requests/Questions: [email protected]: https://paypal.me/magellensmovies?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US

I won’t lie to you, folks, things are looking grim in our world these days. War, polarization, prejudice, and inequality seem to be the order of the day at Cafe de Earth, and just cracking open a newspaper can be a death sentence for that good day you thought you were having. Still, like a well-meaning friend attempting to console his companion after a botched performance of some kind, we can always fall back on that most durable of platitudes: it could be worse. The war could be nuclear, the prejudice could be genocidal, or we could be living in a late-stage capitalist hellscape of mega corporations with the power of governments, ecological disaster the world over, massive overpopulation, and a race of dangerous synthetic humans needing to be brought to heel by an elite force of police assassins. If you have anything more than a passing fondness for the science fiction genre, you’ll probably recognize that as being the plight of the dystopian future as seen in Blade Runner 2049, a 2017 cyber-noir directed by Denis Villeneuve, sequel to the 1982 Blade Runner and based on the world of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by legendary sci-fi author Phillip K. Dick. Blade Runner 2049’s vision of the future is undoubtedly dark (like, seriously, I think the sun might have gone out in this timeline), but holy mother of Asimov is it a future worth exploring. Blade Runner 2049 improves on its predecessor in every way (yes, I said it), exploring the world more deeply, benefited by stronger technology, and at the side of characters more rich, compelling, and empathetic. The performances are nothing less than exemplary, the special effects are eye-popping, and the tragic humanity at the core of this tale of men and not-quite-men brings to the fore some of the most pressing, elusive questions of the human condition. It is, in short, a masterpiece, and today Magellans at the Movies will bequeath to it that title and many more in our new episode. Do you dream of good podcasts? Then maybe you’ll find one once you’re done listening to ours!Contact us/Requests/Questions: [email protected]: https://paypal.me/magellensmovies?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US

The connotations of the word "bomb" are often dictated by the context in which it is set. If I were to inform you that a movie bombed, you would likely bow your head in mourning for a noble film cut down by poor box office returns. If I were to tell you that a movie is the bomb, you would probably smile and nod in approval for a film that has achieved some impressive feat of cinematic greatness. If, however, I were to mention a bomb outside of the context of film entirely and instead in a hot, dusty street in Iraq in 2004, you might get a little bit worried. That’s because such circumstances are almost exclusively the domain of those involved in the Iraq war, a conflict infamous for IEDs. Worry not, though, since we have the brave men of explosive ordnance disposal teams to call upon to ensure the harm inflicted by such bombs are as minimal as possible. Should you wish to see such men in action you would be well served by the 2008 war film The Hurt Locker directed by Kathryn Bigelow. The Hurt Locker made a big splash in movies for its gritty atmosphere, intense performances, and immaculate tension, and for netting a woman the Oscar for best director and best picture for the first time, meaning it’s a prime target for the analytical eyes of Magellans at the movies in today’s new episode. No need to boot up the bot for this one, folks, the only explosions to be found in our program are bursts of petty sibling rivalry, how fun!Contact us/Requests/Questions: [email protected]: https://paypal.me/magellensmovies?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US

If you’re a child of the Brazilian slums in the 1960s, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but you’ve been dealt a pretty lousy hand. Growing up you can look forward to such unpleasantness as abject poverty, filth, social immobility, filth, endemic violence, police brutality, filth, and uncleanliness. If, however, you’re of a mind to transcend the lowly status into which you were thrust, your best bet is that great equalizer, that forge of infamy, that last refuge of the desperate and first port of call for the avaricious, I’m talking, of course, about crime. That’s right, kids, if someone has something you want the quickest way to get it is to insert a gun into the face of its soon-to-be previous owner and take it. That, at least, is the route taken by many of those around Rocket, a young lad living in the titular favelas of City of God, a 2002 Brazilian crime drama directed by Ferdinand Meirelles and Katia Lund and based on the book of the same name by Paulo Lins. City of God is famous for its unflinching portrait of indigency and for igniting interest in foreign films in the U.S., but more importantly, it’s Brazil’s second most important contribution to cinema, the first being its favorite sons and reviewers extraordinaire: Nathan and Elliot Magalhães. Nathan and Elliot have never actually been to Brazil, so to ensure their audience receives as authentic an experience as possible they enlisted their father Eduardo Magalhães III and former Brazilian resident to explicate the finer points of the Brazilian culture on-screen. Does triple the Magellans mean triple the fun? It definitely means triple the length so stop reading this and get the episode started already! Vamos! Contact us/Requests/Questions: [email protected]: https://paypal.me/magellensmovies?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US

Food is what makes the world go round. In a very literal sense it keeps you alive, but it also strengthens economies, buttresses cultures, and, if you have the stomach for it (tee hee), it can be a medium for artistic expression. I make this terrible joke because the world of fine dining can be a demanding one. Facing pressure from critics and customers to continuously push boundaries and innovate in fields that maybe don’t really need innovating, it’s no wonder that the great chefs of the world will sometimes resort to increasingly outlandish stunts to capture audience imaginations or just say screw this and blow up their careers and lives. Interestingly, the antagonist of this week’s episode of Magellans at the Movies: Chef Slowik from the 2022 horror thriller comedy The Menu directed by Mark Mylod, does both. This leads to absurdity and profundity in equal measure, and Nathan and Elliot will be digging into that and more for your listening pleasure. Bon Appetit! Contact us/Requests/Questions: [email protected]: https://paypal.me/magellensmovies?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US

It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done, each and every one of us humans live lives filled with “what if”s. What if I’d pursued that dream, what if I’d asked that girl to the prom, what if I’d listened to the old man in the Arabian bazaar and thrown that cursed onyx necklace into the sea? Peering down roads not traveled may bring comfort or doubt, and the older you get the more of those avenues you’ll have to peruse. Such is the heart of Past Lives, a 2023 drama directed by Celine Song. Past Lives has earned itself laudatory reviews, a theatrical re-release, and a couple Oscar noms, not bad at all, but can it earn itself a good review from Magellans at the Movies? That is the question today’s episode will be answering as we dive into all the angst and uncertainty of memory lane. Let’s get our en-yun started by enjoying the episode together and maybe we’ll end up married a few thousand years from now, wouldn’t that be something?

The Pope, or, the Big Kahuna, if you’re speaking official church Latin. When it comes to the Catholic Church, the biggest single religious denomination on the planet, the buck stops at the man in the white zucchetto. Traditionally considered God’s chief deputy on Earth, the Pope is basically the king priest of the Catholics, and pontiffs throughout history have wielded immense power in both religious and secular arenas. Recently, however, the church seems to have decided that maybe elevating the Pope to the role of shadow emperor to every Catholic-practicing government on Earth might not be what you call Biblically legitimate, and (ideally) modern prelates have been less concerned with suppressing the French Revolution than with matters of Catholic orthodoxy. Controversy still attends the office, however, especially after the Vatican Leak Scandal, directly following which Pope Benedict the One Millionth shocked the world by resigning, leaving the Vatican to be taken by reform-minded Pope Francis the Six Thousandth. Don’t get too bogged down in the clerical politics, though, this is all just the backdrop for The Two Popes, a 2019 film directed by Fernando Meirelles. TTP imagines what it might be like to be a fly on the wall for a hypothetical meeting between Benny and Frank, two men with very different visions for the direction of the church, before Ben’s resignation. Such a fly may have observed a moving, thought-provoking debate about theology and doctrine grounded by a pair of spiffing performances from two legendary actors, at least if the wall it was on was opposite today’s movie! Grab your sword of the spirit and a Bible then, and peace be with us all in the episode!

Crime doesn’t pay, according to people who have never successfully committed one, but those sanctimonious moralizers have clearly never enjoyed the splendor of a Corleone family wedding. There you will find nice cars, expensive clothes, fine dining, and a vibrant collage of personality disorders, and all bought and paid for by an illicit empire of robbery, extortion, gambling, and murder. Those of us unwilling to kowtow before the Corleone’s imperious patriarch will have to experience such luxury vicariously through the camera aimed at them in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 gangster flick to end all gangster flicks The Godfather, based on the book of the same name by Mario Puzo. To say that The Godfather is an influential, well-regarded movie is to call outer space a bit nippy. The Godfather isn’t just a paragon of the medium of filmmaking, it’s a pillar of the cinematic canon, as synonymous with movies as Romeo and Juliet is with the theater. Today, then, let’s return to this certified classic and see what awaits us, conversion or disillusionment? I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse: press the play button and you’ll get to listen to the episode!

Ah, to be young and in love. The butterflies, the sense of the future’s great possibilities, the need to traverse a city besieged by a towering monster in order to rescue your heart’s flame from her destroyed apartment building . . . wait, I’m mixing up Hallmark movies with the 2008 found-footage horror monster movie Cloverfield, directed by Matthew Reeves. Oh well, as long as we’re talking about it, we might as well mention that Cloverfield has had an outsized impact since its release. It’s spawned two uh, spinoffs? Sequels? Whatever, there’s more than one movie with the word Cloverfield in the title is the point, and it all started with a low-budget kaiju flick that gave audiences a terrifyingly close look at what the reality of a giant monster on a walking tour of New York City would look like. To christen the new year, then, let us return to this curious genre-bender in the first episode of Magellans at the Movies in 2024! Grab your camcorder and superglue it to your hand because you won’t want to miss a thing!

2023 was quite a year for movies, between strikes and Barbies there was nary a dull moment for those of us in the cinema reaction business. But now we have reached the end of this storied year, and the brothers in charge of Iowa's greatest film review podcast are turning their gaze backwards to bring you their full thoughts on the past 365 days. They will be recounting their favorite and least favorite movies they saw this year, along with their favorites from other art forms such as books and TV shows. So, grab a few friends and listen in to the movies and shows you don't want to leave unwatched before you sing Auld Lang Syne and are once again confused as to the meaning of that weird song.

Life can be difficult for old people, what with their failing health, increasing estrangement from an evolving cultural zeitgeist, and now-obsolete wardrobe of bell bottom pants and lederhosen or whatever people used to wear. It’s no wonder that some of them can be a bit grouchy in the face of all this, and to embody this enduring spirit of prickly cantankerousness, who else can they turn to but their most favored son: Clint Eastwood? In the latter days of his career Clint Eastwood has more and more often cast himself in his movies to play his classic role, that of Clint Eastwood, or at least an irascible, world weary old man living in seclusion from a modern world he doesn’t understand. A prime example of this phenomenon of Clinception can be found in Gran Torino, a 2008 Clint Eastwood directed, Clint Eastwood starring drama. Gran Torino is fondly remembered by a lot of people for its classic character dynamics and pleasant humor, and today Magellans at the Movies will be talking about that and more on a new episode of their smash hit podcast! Get off my lawn and onto your devices so you can start listening!

Space. The final frontier, and the thing you always seem to be short on whenever you’re in the company of a sick kindergartener. You may want to flee from little Johnny’s sudden and insatiable need to hug you, but even if you go to the exact other side of the planet the amount of space between you is but a miniscule, virtually nonexistent fraction of the total spacial area of the universe. To attempt to traverse distances on this cosmic scale is a task so daunting only the most catastrophic of kindergartener hugs could prompt one to undertake it, and in this case the snot-soaked embrace comes in the form of a mass cessation of plant life that spells impending doom for all life on Earth. I’m talking, of course, about the extinction level threat that facilitates Interstellar, a 2014 science fiction drama directed by Christopher Nolan. Interstellar utilizes theoretical physics to form a visually unparalleled spectacle in which a deeply intimate and human drama is staged. This jaw-dropping, mind-bending triumph from the master of jaw-dropping, mind-bending triumphs was criminally underrated on release, and today the Magellans at the Movies will attempt to rectify the not-nearly-breathless enough response in a brand new episode! It’s not impossible, it’s necessary . . . for you to get listening!Contact us/Requests/Questions: [email protected]: https://paypal.me/magellensmovies?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US

The Holy Grail is basically the Holy Grail of points of comparison for very valuable things that are also extremely hard to find. Indiana Jones found it, of course, but he had to leave it where it was so that doesn’t count, especially since, even before our favorite archeologist cracked his first whip, the grail was the subject of much interest among medieval kings and scholars. One such noted medieval scholar was Monty Python, a guy (or possibly a group of guys, only your dad knows for sure) who was more hijinks-prone than a Loony Tune. His/their most famous hijinks? Those that transpired in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a 1975 comedy directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones. This farcical series of thinly connected sketches has seeped so far into the culture that it’s probably hit bedrock by now so join Nathan and Elliot as they do some cultural excavation to examine this nostalgic hit of classic comedy for you lily-bottomed nincompoops. Now go listen to the episode or I shall taunt you for a second time!

He’s back, ladies and gentlemen. After a brief foray into a crisp, charming biopic without even a single violent murder, David Your-Pets-Don’t-Love-You-They-Love-Being-Fed Fincher returns to reclaim his throne as the sultan of sadness with all the blood, nihilism, and that distinctly Fincher-y sickly hue of yellow you expect from him in The Killer, a 2023 psychological thriller based on the French graphic novel of the same name written by Alexis Nolent released exclusively to Netflix because that’s a thing movies do now. The Killer has earned plenty of sevens, eights, and occasional nines from the general movie going public, but no one cares because today Nathan and Elliot, both of whom are fluent in Fincher, have returned as well to evaluate Dave’s newest offering. Grab some piano wire and a silencer because we’re going in stealthy to deliver this movie a clean and most definitely unnoticed review!

For pity's sake.

Cats and footwear. Two things that traditionally don’t mix, what with cats being more temperamental than a spoiled toddler who hasn’t had his nap yet. Because of this inborn insistence on kicking it hobbit-style, when a bold, pioneering cat does rise above his feline brethren to slip his tootsies in some bootsies he is sure to command attention. Maybe, if left in the anthropomorphizing machine for long enough, he can even wear a hat, belt, and cape and become a charming, dashing rogue in the tradition of Zorro and Robin Hood. I’m talking, of course, about Puss in Boots, once a novel side-character of the Shrek franchise who proved popular enough to warrant two movies of his own, the most recent of which being Puss in Boots: The Last Wish a 2022 animated adventure directed by Joel Crawford. P.I.B.T.L.W. won critical and commercial success on release and was even nominated for an Oscar, which means it was only a matter of time before the relevancy-starved Magellans at the Movies turned their discerning critical eyes towards this modern fairy tale and the contents therein. Grab a seat and remember that cats in real life should absolutely never be given milk, let the games begin!

It’s not exactly groundbreaking to say that money can exert a corrupting influence over us. Money isn’t what makes life worth living, but it is what makes the lives most of us live possible. Money is the bridge between us and the vast majority of our material needs and desires, allowing us to have stuff like computers, tomato seeds, and novelty pillowcases with the infamous “Hey, you. You’re finally awake” Skyrim screenshot printed on them. You don’t need to know about my bedroom decor, though, for the purposes of today’s helping of stale humor and cringe-inducing attempts at artistic analysis you just need to know that money compels people to do evil things sometimes, especially if you’re an avaricious man-about-town looking to get rich with the help of his pliable nephew. Such is the motivation for William Hale and Ernest Burkhart of Killers of the Flower Moon, a 2023 historical drama directed by Martin Scorsese and based on the book by David Grann. Flower Moon seems tailor made for Oscar season, what with its prestigious cast, legendary director, and classically old Hollywood trappings, and it certainly has garnered a tailwind of buzz and acclaim in that regard. In their desperate grasps at relevancy, then, the hosts of Magellans at the Movies tuned in to Scorsese’s latest and are prepared to dispense their opinions. Let’s proceed with the proceedings!

Josef Stalin, general secretary of the Soviet Union, thug, and all around murderous megalomaniac, has died. What follows this massively consequential non-tragedy is a mad scramble for power as members of the Politburo amass what support they can for their respective claims to be next in line. Infighting amongst them is inevitable and spills out of the halls of Kremlin in the form of generalized chaos and further deaths that culminate in the installation of another ruthless dictator as new leader of the USSR in a chain of oppression and tyranny that will last for decades further. Setting a comedy in such a grim context may strike you as being in poor taste, but rest assured The Death of Stalin, a 2017 dark comedy directed by Armando Iannucci and based on the graphic novel by Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin, is punching up, WAY up. This under-watched gem lampoons its monstrous subjects with merciless wit, all while grounding its bleakly hilarious barbs and digs in an ever-present, sober awareness that all this bumbling, brutal politicking had a very real and very tragic impact on the lives of Soviet citizens. With that searing fact in mind, then, let’s all enjoy a good laugh at the expense of some of the most despicable men of the last century. Let’s watch!

Love. It’s all you need, it conquers all, it’s patient and kind, it’s generally excellent. Even beyond those qualities is the fact that you never know where you might stumble into it. Romantic connections can happen in raves, school, or even online without ever encountering the object of your affections in real life! Or, if you’re a pair of attractive young people traveling across Europe, it can start in a train and follow you off said train and onto the streets of Vienna at night. I’m referring, of course, to the romance of Before Sunrise, a 1995 romance directed by Richard Linklater. The beginning of the Before trilogy has garnered vociferous praise from critics and fans alike for its simple, achingly romantic depiction of young love, and today the famous romantics Nathan and Elliot Magellan will be evaluating it. Let’s head to the lounge car and get this party started!

We do not want to make any jokes about this movie, please enjoy our episode on Florian Zeller's The Father.

It really is impossible to overstate just how ubiquitous Star Wars is as a franchise. It’s easier to find the Ark of the Covenant than it is to find someone so culturally illiterate, so far removed from the bright center of the galaxy that they’ve never heard of George Lucas’ civilization dominating brainchild. Star Wars means many different things to many different people, and today, for some reason, Magellans at the Movies is revealing what it means to them. And not just the movies, but the video games, and the TV shows too! That’s right, Star Warriors, today Nathan and Elliot will be reviewing THE ENTIRE Star Wars franchise, or at least every bit of it that they have experienced. It’s all Star Wars all the time on today’s episode, so if that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea then we don’t serve your kind here, you’ll have to wait outside. For the rest of us, this is where the fun begins so draw your nostalgia bath and take a dip as we go once more to a galaxy far, far away. Prepare to be impressed, most impressed!

It’s been a long day on the road. You’ve annoyed the locals of whatever tourist trap you’ve been to, you’ve been swindled out of your life savings in exchange for two post cards and commemorative mug, and now you’re looking to cap off a successful day with a good night’s kip. This poses a problem, however, because you forgot to pack your house, and now you need shelter for the cold night. Well, you’re in luck, because thousands of years ago some bright young entrepreneur came up with the idea of the inn, where you can rest your feet in a comfortable room for a small fee. Gradually this business model evolved into modern motels, and, let’s be honest, some of them can be pretty sketchy. But even the grimiest of backroad hostels isn’t (usually) a place you can expect to be murdered. That kind of thing is usually the fare of movies such as Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 book-based thriller/slasher/horror movie that blew the movie world wide-open. Psycho was a truly watershed moment in film history; it shocked audiences with a constant supply of twists and violence that was considered extreme for the time. Even if you’ve never heard of Psycho, you’ve felt the effects it had on movies, and today we’re revisiting this legendary picture on a brand spanking new installment of Magellans at the Movies! After all, we all need a little podcasting sometimes.

Bosses, amirite? American civilization is practically founded on the idea that the 9-5 worker drone one tier above you is a bit of a handful, denying you overtime, forcing you to give up your vacation days, and making that promotion contingent upon you laughing at their lame jokes to a not insignificant degree. All of that’s bad, of course, but at least we can be grateful that supervisor Greg doesn’t take us on an increasingly dangerous tour of Los Angeles’ criminal underbelly while skillfully positioning us for his own dastardly schemes. That, unfortunately, is the lot of Jake Hoyt in the 2001 crime thriller Training Day, and his supervisor Greg is the peerless Denzel Washington in an Oscar-winning turn as a charismatic but manipulative police officer. Training Day is a strong bit of early 2000s drugs-and-thugs drama elevated by some truly stellar acting, and today your Magellans at the Movies will be evaluating it because of reasons. Hide your badge and sharpen your slang because we’re going undercover!

Ah, to be an Irish rogue in the 1700s. It was such a glorious time if your name was Charles, last name The Twelfth or if you were a doctor peddling in leech based medicinal techniques. Fortunately for those of us who are neither we can just watch the goings on of this time via the magical technology of moving pictures, and even more fortunately we can then hear them being discussed by geniuses in the art of film criticism or in this case by underqualified Brazilian-Americans with some time on their hands. This week we're covering the much-lauded period drama Barry Lyndon by the legendary director Stanley Kubrick. It's been hailed as a classic since its release, but now let's discover how these two brothers feel. Listen in to find out!!!

Nature is full of dangerous animals. Bears, alligators, lions, and honey badgers are all vicious, aggressive predators that, if given the chance, will happily kill and eat a human who, despite being firmly atop the food chain, are comparatively fragile and much shorter on pointy bits than your average apex predator. Depending on your galeophobia levels, you may have noticed one animal that I didn’t list just a minute ago: sharks. That’s because sharks aren’t actually that interested in eating humans, and experts generally agree that the few shark attacks that do occur each year do so when a shark mistakes a human for a seal, the idiots. Not so in the world of Jaws, a 1975 creature feature based on the book of the same name and directed by Steven Spielberg that spotlighted a shark of supernatural bloodlust. Inaccurate though it may be, Jaws was a watershed moment in movie history, practically inventing the effects-heavy thrills and chills-focused summer blockbuster. Now that the summer is winding down, the Magellans thought they would enjoy one last taste of the golden months before fall by diving (pun) back into the awesome aquatic action of this quintessential summer flick. We’re gonna need a bigger podcast!

We all know Hollywood legend Orson Welles from his groundbreaking role as Unicron in Transformers: The Movie, but did you know he actually directed and starred in a lesser known film called Citizen Kane in 1941? It’s true! This brave little movie toiling in the shadow of its younger brother may not have bright colors or cars that turn into robots, but that doesn’t mean it has nothing to say for itself. Citizen Kane has a Shakespearean rise and fall, then-innovative cinematography techniques, and a complex character study forming the backbone of its story, which is, you know, fine, if you’re into that kind of thing. Anyways, this is the perfect chance for you to expand your Welles knowledge and give this obscure film a chance, and then be sure to come back and listen to those lovable Magellans blather on about it. Podcast on the march!

One of the most impressive powers of good writing is its ability to convince you to take seriously that which you would find outrageous and laughable in real life. If, on the evening news, you saw someone dressed up like a bat and ran around the city at night beating up muggers, you’d probably have a good chuckle at the expense of the silly man in his silly costume, but watch that same quirky spectacle on the big screen and you may just find yourself enthralled. I’m talking, of course, about the objectively hilarious yet deadly serious legend of Batman, most recently seen on the big screen in 2022’s The Batman directed by Matthew Reeves. The Batman was a much-need shot in the arm for a flailing DCEU, a dark, gritty, slow-burning love letter to everything people love about the modern Caped Crusader. Join your equally beloved Magellans at the Movies, then, as they revisit this acclaimed comic flick to see how well it’s aged over the past year. Na na na na na na na na podcast!

For as long as there has been news there have been those who would spread it. Modern journalism may trace its roots back to the advent of radio and television reporting, but the practice of informing people of the goings on in the world far predates media journalism. That’s right, when your crazy uncle leaves you a fifteen minute voicemail urging you to start digging a bunker in preparation for the illuminati’s forthcoming global conquest, he’s inheriting a rich and noble tradition that is thousands of years old and peopled with hundreds of diligent, respectable, hard-working public servants. This, of course, is not always how it pans out. While good people like your uncle might be patient, thorough guardians of truth and justice, there are charlatans, con men, and fraudsters printing news as well. Sensationalism and manipulation in the news has long been a concern of those who consume it, as evidenced by Ace in the Hole, a 1951 Billy Wilder directed drama about a scandal-peddling, tragedy-mongering tool who resorts to dubious methods to spring him out of the career grave his indiscretions have landed him in. Ace in the Hole promises the usual Billy Wilder things: a sharp, tightly written script, quippy humor, and simple yet understandable characters, and today we’ll talk about all of that and more in a new episode of Magellans at the Movies. Hot off the presses! Nathan and Elliot Magalhães to Release New Installment of Podcast - Public Response Lukewarm. Nathan distraught over plunging numbers, Elliot unavailable for comment, suspected dead, more on page 12A.

Any therapist worth their salt will tell you that it simply doesn’t do to dwell on the negative. Allowing your mental wheels to grind against the woes of the past will only serve to make you more bitter, more defensive, more paranoid, and ultimately less open to the many opportunities and triumphs of the now. Unless, of course, you’ve decided to mark every tenth episode of your unsuccessful film podcast with some kind of special episode, in which case you’re more than willing to shred your mental health by immersing yourself in the trauma tank that is bad movies. No matter how forgiving of a viewer you are, everyone has a list of movies that they can’t stand, the ones that leave you reeling in total disbelief at how anyone was able to produce so many consecutive minutes of pure agony and call it entertainment. Thus we come to the subject of today’s episode of Magellans at the Movies: our least favorites. Hit that big green play button and be sure to have a glass of water on hand because things are about to get spicy!

In the great pantheon of childhood toys there are few as ubiquitous, as culturally dominant, as wildly oversaturated as Barbie, the plastic approximation of a woman whose various outfits probably cost more than your entire closet. Being so intertwined with the tumultuous development of young girls, the brand is of course subject to great scrutiny. Barbie has been accused of being everything from an unrealistic, self-esteem destroying symbol of the male gaze to a Pied Piper of liberal values luring girls away from homemaking and into the workplace. That’s quite a lot of fuss to kick up about a toy whose ultimate fate was met in the jaws of the family dog more often than not, but there are legitimate questions to be asked about what Barbie represents for girls and the impact she has had on them over the years. Thus, when the time came to make a live action movie about her, Warner Brothers and Mattel enlisted director Greta Gerwig, indie actress turned prophet of the adolescent American female, to try to make some kind of sense out of this little plastic doll. The result is the creatively named Barbie, released in 2023 to general acclaim. The Magellan brothers saw it as part of their Barbenheimer celebrations, but, since Nathan only ever owned the one Barbie doll (true story), they felt ill-equipped to judge Barbie’s treatment of its titular subject matter. Thus, they brought in the newly minted Lydia Cowins, their sister and former Barbie-owning young girl, to provide some much needed context to their bemused experience of a film that, whatever its merits or shortcomings, knows exactly what audience it’s playing to. Welcome to your dream home . . . for movie podcasts!

Science! Best known for its supporting role in Bill Nye the Science Guy, science is the method by which we deepen our understanding of the world around us. It tells us what lies in the hearts of stars, the process by which our bodies are formed, and how to turn lead into gold probably. Science isn’t just about nature, it undergirds the world man has established. It has provided us with new materials for building, new medicines for living, and new frontiers for exploring. Most important of all, if you’re an enterprising young empire looking to make a name for yourself, that is, it can tell us how to blow stuff up. Indeed, in the past century alone science has gotten exponentially better at being the carelessly tossed book to the LEGO tower of human infrastructure, culminating in the atomic bomb, one of the most destructive and dangerous weapons to ever be in the hands of a guy whose most standout qualification for wielding such power is usually their having won the most high-stakes popularity contest ever conceived. Yes sir, nukes are serious business, and their inception (get it?) calls for an appropriately serious movie. Hence Oppenheimer, the deeply serious 2023 Christopher Nolan-directed biopic about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Father of the Atomic Bomb. Oppenheimer is, ahem, blowing up at the box office right now, and rightly so, given that it’s a tightly written, impeccably directed, brilliantly acted portrait of one of the most consequential figures in human history (and given the fact that fate has blessed it with a highly memeable shared release date with Barbie). This week, then, in a Barbenheimer double feature, Magellans at the Movies will be reviewing Oppy’s cinematic life as well. Light that pipe and doff that fedora because we’re going in!Contact us/Requests/Questions: [email protected]: https://paypal.me/magellensmovies?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US

Sand. According to the modern Shakespeare it’s coarse, rough, irritating, and gets everywhere. Those of a similar mind should probably avoid the sun-blasted wastes of Arabia, where the dust is plentiful and the cleansing water rare. The only thing that could make these unforgiving deserts worse would be a web of train lines and bridges used by the Ottoman Empire to move supplies and troops to their various fronts in the first World War. We don’t have to worry about these days, however, thanks in part to the exploits of T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, a young British officer who embedded himself in the Arab revolt to assist in the rebellion’s efforts against the Turks. Thanks to a wildly successful P.R. campaign and a vividly written autobiography, Lawrence became a household name and was eventually memorialized in Lawrence of Arabia, a 1962 historical epic directed by David Lean. Lawrence of Arabia is a grand, sweeping film of jaw-dropping scale and scope, the kind of ambitious realization of an imposing historical legend that has largely fallen out of favor in modern Hollywood. Today, then, let’s dive back into the pages of history alongside this illustrious film to see how it’s all aged. Into the desert, my friends!

Why are we doing this? Descriptions written by Elliot

Indiana Jones. He’s one of the most recognizable film characters of all time. The whip, the leather jacket, the revolver, and of course, the fedora, all combine to create the adventuring archaeologist's famous silhouette, but Indy’s appeal isn’t all superficial. He’s just a well written, charismatic, Nazi punching hero played with predictably smooth aplomb by Harrison Ford. The franchise didn’t exactly leave us on a high note in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but a brave group of filmmakers have been assembled to try to bring Indy back in the form of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, a 2023 adventure film directed by James Mangold. Dial of Destiny has suffered from a conspicuously troubled development, plagued by reshoots, poor test screenings, and a general atmosphere of suspicion and outright hostility from significant chunks of the fanbase. Now that it’s here, has Lucasfilm managed to pull a rabbit out of their battered brown fedora? Crack that whip and let’s find out!

Everyone has bad days from time to time, yes, even if you live in Australia (five bucks if you get that reference). Your car won’t start when you need to be at work early, the AC breaks on the hottest day of the year, or you accidentally switch lives with your evil long lost twin on your wedding day thus throwing your entire future into uncertainty as you try to convince the police that it’s a coincidence you look exactly like the drug kingpin they’ve been hunting for the past two years. The thing about these troublesome scenarios is that we’ve all been there, we can all relate to them, but we should still spare a thought for the people going through more outlandish just-one-of-those-days days, people like the boys in blue facing down endemic political corruption and violent criminals while trapped in quite literally the most disgusting, poorly maintained apartment complex to ever house human beings. Such is the fate of the central cast of The Raid: Redemption, a 2011 action sleeper-hit directed by Gareth Evans. The Raid is most well known for its chaotic, balletic, bone-crunching action, directed and overseen as it was by stuntmen and choreographers who designed every aspect of the film to either incite, support, or showcase the movie’s fast-paced fisticuffs. Pretty much everyone who sees The Raid finds something to be impressed in it, but Nathan hasn’t seen the film before, so it’s time to put that axiom I just made up to the test. Move in!

Antiquities are a niche interest. People collect relics from the past to learn about how people once lived, how they occupied themselves, and the kinds of comforts they could enjoy. For many people, perusing gilded mirrors, dusty phonographs, and hideous cushions in a poorly lit store on your local town square constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, but some artifacts defy age and become entrenched in our daily lives for all time thanks to their enduring viability. The same is true of movies, especially when it comes to Casablanca, a 1942 film directed by Michael Curtiz and source for most of your grandparents’ references. Casablanca takes place on obvious sets, was filmed during World War II, and its entire cast smokes enough to be two days away from a terminal lung cancer diagnosis, and yet for all its superficial seniority, it has stood the test of time for the simple reason of being a doggone masterpiece. Casablanca is achingly romantic, its characters are eloquent yet understated, and its powerful cast deliver career-defining performances, and today, thanks to a request from one of our loyal listeners, Magellans at the Movies will be gushing about it. Here’s looking at you kid, now let’s jump in!Magellans at the Movies: the Blog (magellansatthemoviesblog.blogspot.com)

In the great pantheon of stuffy old late-19th century British authors (for which the middle school English teacher is the most devoted evangelist) perhaps no other member has had their works adapted more often or in more mediums than Jane Austen, chronicler and critic of polite society in England. Austen’s books have weighed down many an American student’s backpack, but we all know that it’s easier to just watch the movie and then cobble together your report from that, so if you’ve recently been assigned Pride and Prejudice, may we recommend director Joe Wright’s 2005 adaptation as a substitute? You can knock it out in two hours, you can look at your phone while it’s playing, and best of all, after you’ve squeezed a thousand words out of your half-remembered experience you can listen to today’s episode of Magellans at the Movies! That’s right folks, today we’re buckling our shoes and dusting off our epaulets because we’re going to the only place with a higher concentration of emotional repression and undiagnosed nervous disorders than that which can be found on the internet: Victorian England! Disclaimer: failing to adhere to the clear parameters of school assignments is wrong and is not officially endorsed by Magellans at the Movies Inc. or any of its affiliates.

It’s the waning days of World War II and Nazi Germany is in a bad way. The Allies have squeezed them out of Africa and Asia and have begun pushing deep into Europe. Berlin is being slowly suffocated by the Red Army of the Soviet Union and the American and British forces are not far behind. A setting like that usually calls for a grand, explosive film about the heroic Allies delivering the final, decisive deathblow to the exhausted Axis, but director Oliver Hirschbiegel decided to take things in an altogether more unique direction with Downfall, his 2004 character study of the infamous Adolf Hitler’s last days as he flails for some kind of military miracle from the tense confines of his bunker. Downfall is a German film told from the perspective of Hitler’s real-life secretary Traudl Junge, and made the somewhat unpopular decision to meet its detestable characters on their own terms, making an earnest attempt to understand how people ally themselves with evil. In the end this approach paid off and Downfall enjoyed heaps of well deserved praise for its stellar performances and tragic depiction of what Hannah Arnedt called the banality of evil. We’ll do our best to keep things lighthearted, but stories like these don’t exactly lend themselves to knee-slappers, so slap some patches on your suit’s elbows and light your pipe because Magellans at the Movies are diving into the pages of history.

Welcome to Los Angeles, the seat of the American film industry! Here you can learn about astronomy at the Griffith Observatory, see the Pacific from the L.A. Boardwalk, and walk across the greats of moviemaking on your way to the TLC Chinese Theater. And of course, no visit to the city of angels would be complete without a glimpse of the Hollywood sign, keeping its steady watch over the humble borough of tinsel town. L.A. has been mythologized almost as much as New York City, and as such has become a beacon for throngs of dreamers hoping for a chance to be discovered and catapulted into stardom. These glossy, candy-colored dreams are the lifeblood, central appeal, and indeed raison d'etre of movies like La La Land, the Damien Chazelle directed 2016 musical and subject of that one famous Oscars snafu. No, the other one. No, the one without the aggravated assault. La La Land is more than just a flashy bit of Hollywood ego-stroking, however, it also endeavors to be a subtle romance about the conflict between personal fulfillment and the pursuit of relationships, the ultimate mendacity of the Hollywood dream, and the pain and questions of the road not taken, bolstered by a pair of stand out performances. La La Land is such a cinematic treat that it fought its way through the frankly overflowing catalog of movies Nathan has seen to claim top honors as his favorite, so now that everyone’s hopefully had time to get over their No Country For Old Men-induced existential crisis, let’s all pep things up a bit with this melodious matinee. Shine your dancing shoes and grab a partner, hit it!

It’s hard getting old. There’s the usual complaints: things like weakening bodies, fading memories, and the looming shadow of death, but getting old also means seeing things change. McDonald’s starts selling breakfast all day, they make the capes for LEGO figures out of cloth instead of paper, and everyone and their grandma wants you to scan a QR code to access their business even though I don’t have my phone on me and why can’t I just talk to a real human to sort out my order I just don’t get-wait, what was I talking about? Well, anyways, you see things change as you get older and you may not like what you see, especially if you’re an aging Sheriff tracking an increasingly violent game of cat and mouse being played between an unassuming everyman on the run with stolen drug money and a murderous hit man hired to kill him and retrieve the illicit cash. At that point you’re living in No Country for Old Men, a 2007 neo-western directed by the Coen brothers and based on the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name, and brother, you do not want to be living in that movie. That’s because No Country is dark, somber, and violent, but if you can watch the film rather than inhabit it, you’ll enjoy a peerless crime drama with career-defining performances from the likes of Javier Bardem and Tommy Lee Jones. I honestly can’t say enough good things about No Country for Old Men; it’s tense, brilliantly shot, perfectly paced, and endlessly thought-provoking, and it also happens to be Elliot’s favorite movie, so get ready for some truly breathless stuttering monologues about the deconstructionist roots of anti-romanticism in neo-westerns or whatever. Nathan’s there too, I think. Lace up your cowboy boots and check the money for a transponder and let’s hit the road!

The world is full of stories. Legends and larks abound across the globe, from Eastern European folk tales, to the plays of ancient Greece, to the ongoing storylines of MMOs like Destiny. Some of these tales are inevitably swallowed by the content machine of Hollywood and end up on the silver screen, but in a world as rich with fables as ours it is equally inevitable that a great many deserving stories slip through the cracks and remain chained to the page or the historical record or the PC. Today, then, Nathan and Elliot are sounding the call to the deaf ears of tinsel town, bringing to their non-attention and your vaguely detached attention a selection of their favorite fictions or nonfictions that have yet to be blessed by the fickle attention of the modern media landscape. Grab a pen and get ready to have your reading list inflated because the Magellans at the Movies are talking about movies once again, only this time movies that don’t exist. Sounds like fun!

An epitome is a person or thing that is the perfect example of a particular quality or type. The nuclear bomb is the epitome of manmade destructive power, McDonald’s is the epitome of nothing, Magellans at the Movies is the epitome of movie podcasts, etc. Sometimes the classification of something as an epitome is more controversial than others, but when it comes to Westerns, few would argue against The Good the Bad and the Ugly’s status of the perfect example of this type of movie. Directed by master of the spaghetti western Sergio Leone in 1966, this three hour behemoth of a film cemented the tropes of the genre and provided a much lauded conclusion to the dollars trilogy, while also showcasing Clint Eastwood’s most famous rendition of The Man With No Name. TGTBATU, as it’s informally known, is so gargantuan in scope and scale that the Magellans at the Movies needed to call in an extra set of hands to tackle this cinematic cornerstone, leading to today’s special guest A.J. Arnold! Stick a toothpick in your teeth and throw on your duster because it’s time to giddyup into today’s episode!

Everyone feels a little crazy sometimes. Maybe the guy in front of you in line at Burger King seems to be dealing with the concept of a menu for the very first time. Maybe everyone is showering praise on a film you just don’t like. Or maybe you’re having vivid dreams of your dead wife interspliced with flashbacks to a traumatic experience liberating the Dachau death camp at the end of World War II. If so, you may seek treatment at a mental health institution, but, uh-oh, it’s only 1954 and that means standards of care at asylums are . . . uh, let’s say substandard. Especially if the facility in question is the one featured in Shutter Island, Martin Scorsese’s 2010 psychological mystery-thriller. This gothic institution for the criminally insane may seem benevolent at first, but soon you’ll hear whispers of illegal experiments, people being lobotomized for asking too many questions, patients who come into the care of the island and are never heard from again. With the stage ominously set, a pair of federal marshals come onto the scene for a tense, foreboding offering from its famous director, bolstered by a strong cast and reliably excellent direction. Shutter island wasn’t a smash hit with critics, but audiences loved it for its dense atmosphere and stellar performances, and, at the request of one of our loyal listeners, the Magellan brothers were more than happy to take a look at one of Scorsese’s lesser loved movies. Duck the strait-jacket wielding orderlies and don’t take anything they give you, because all is not as it seems!

James Bond is undoubtedly one of the most iconic characters in all of fiction. Based on a series of novels by Ian Fleming, ever since the 60s our theaters have never been long without a sharply dressed, smooth-talking womanizer saving the world from all manner of eccentric criminals and sinister clandestine organizations. Despite being British through and through, James Bond’s appeal has spread to all corners of the world with his quirky gadgets, witty quips, and-how shall I put this?-strained relationship with what international subterfuge actually looks like. Every generation has had their own Bond, and his canon, tone, and cast of characters has remained remarkably consistent across his nearly three-quarters-of-a-century run, and since Nathan recently decided to see what all the cultural fuss was about, we’ve decided to take a look at the inception of our own incarnation of James Bond with 2006’s Martin Campbell directed Casino Royale. Casino Royale acted as a kind of soft reboot for the character, taking him back to his first big mission against an evil, uh, accountant, in the intense, action packed arena of . . . um, a high-stakes poker game in a private hotel lounge. Thrilling stuff. Anyhoo, shake those martinis and straighten those bow ties because Magellans at the Movies are going in. What’s that? Do I expect you to have read this entire thing? No, listener, I expect you to have gotten bored and started the episode!

I think one of the benefits of living in a post-lockdown era is that our time cooped up indoors has made us more sensitive to the dangers of cabin fever and the limits of a familial or friendly bond. You may love your child more than breathing, but there’s nothing like constant proximity to make you realize just how irritating the way they eat truly is. Unfortunately for the folks living in The Thing, the 1982 science fiction horror classic (based on The Thing from Another World which in turn was based on the short story Who Goes There? by John Campbell Jr.) directed by John Carpenter, their position in the Antarctic wastes in the dead of winter makes it much more difficult to go outside and unleash a cathartic scream of frustration. Compounding their tension is the tendency of their fellow man to be taken over by an alien parasite, transform into grotesque abominations that would make your average Resident Evil boss a bit queasy, and do their darndest to ensure you suffer the same fate. No amount of team building exercises and group movie nights can surmount that relationship hurdle, I’m afraid. Still, it’s not all loss because their suffering is our enjoyment, as The Thing frequently holds pride of place on rankings of Carpenters many achievements in the horror genre. This claustrophobic, paranoid creature feature is unbearably tense, never allowing viewers a moment’s peace, as who is human and who is a Geiger-esque explosion of limbs, slime, and teeth in waiting is always in question. The Thing is so well crafted that it even conquered Elliot’s natural cowardice and inspired him and his brother to talk about it for a bit in a recorded conversation that they felt compelled to transfer into cyberspace. Pull up a chair, then, and keep a wary eye on your housemates as we dive into today’s episode of Magellans at the Movies!