Bald Move Prestige

Jim and I saw the reboot of Hellboy and it's the definition of a mixed bag. Jim thought the movie was bad, but I borderline loved it. I have no explanation for my critical disparity, and I can see the issues with plot and humor that Jim and others are expressing but... I've seen a helluva lot of worse movies this year get better reviews. It's a damn shame, because while I think everyone can agree that Harbour makes an excellent Hellboy, the movie isn't likely to get the sequel his casting deserves.

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We talk about the latest attempt at a Stephen King adaptation, Pet Sematary. The movie is genuinely scary and horrifying when it wants to be, unfortunately in our opinion they squander a lot of time and goodwill in the first act flailing about conceptually which keeps us from connecting with the characters and setting the way we should. But still, the family dynamics, endangered children, and a great Jon Lithgow performance does just enough to sell us when things that were better off left dead aren't.

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Jim and A.Ron discuss their thoughts and feelings about the season opener for HBO's hilarious and thought-provoking Barry, then Cecily swings by the studio to talk American Gods (00:31:07) episode "The Greatest Story Ever Told".

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A.Ron and Cecily are back and catching up on season two of Starz American Gods! We're definitely seeing some of the weaknesses the critics and some disgruntled fans have been complaining about in isolated scenes; the road trip with Wednesday and Nancy being a particularly glaring example. But overall, we're still in love with the world, style, and characters being established here. We discuss hot topics from the past two weeks before getting to your feedback!

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Cecily and A.Ron declare March 24th as international Singin' in the Rain Day! Singin' is the greatest Hollywood musical ever devised, and should be seen by everyone that cares about movies as an artform, as well as every human with a beating heart. If you fall into either category, you owe yourself to take a shot of this straight up cinematic heroin. The ultimate pick-me up for a day you're feeling blue, or just want an extra spring to your step. 

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Jim and A.Ron give some brief thoughts on the brief episodes of Netflix's new gonzo animated anthology, Love, Death, and Robots, before beginning deliberations on HBO's new documentary, The Case Against Adnan Syed.  We'll be off on vacation all next week! See you when we return!

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Cecily and A.Ron take over Bald Move TV to talk about the new season of Stars American Gods. While we have previously discussed the show in passing, we'll be taking longer looks at it this season, beginning with this premiere episode, "House on the Rock".

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We've seen Chiwetel Ejiofor's (star of 12 Years a Slave, Doctor Strange) directorial debut on Netflix, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, and found it compelling and enlightening. Based on a true story about a Malawian boy who saves his village from famine with his wits, ingenuity, and education, The Boy offers us an inside look at things we can barely begin to relate to; widespread starvation, civil unrest and the breakdown of society. Things that we may have to relate to sooner than we think. 

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Jim and I cover two semi-related topics, the horror genre take on #metoo that is Hulu's Into the Dark: Treehouse, as well as the documentary on Michael Jackson, Leaving Neverland that paints a compelling, credible, and disturbing picture of the pop superstar. It's also an excellent primer on understanding and preventing child abuse, which every parent or potential parent should watch.

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We have seen the latest Marvel super extravaganza, Captain Marvel, and come away with the suspicion that it's missing something from the usual Marvel formula. If anything, it feels DC-esque in the way it's attempting to shoe horn in a new, unknown super power into the MCU. Uninspired fights, plot twists that are seen for miles away, and lacking engaging supporting characters that give the main character emotional stakes, Captain Marvel is good, perhaps, but not great, and maybe that's overselling it.

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At long last we're ready to wrap up our second annual "Groundhog Day" Star Wars movie marathon! With the help and support of the Bald Move community, we raised $15,691.51 for the National Alliance to End Homelessness over 24 grueling hours of non-stop Star Wars watching. Jim and A.Ron break down their thoughts and feelings on the event, and dish on plans for future marathons, then invite Ben Noll from the National Alliance to discuss their mission and how they feel they can truly end homelessness.

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Jim and A.Ron watched a near record amount of television this week! We finished The Umbrella Economy and Lorena, as well as offering first looks at the third season of Documentary Now and the new Prime Original, This Giant Beast that is the Global Economy. Buckle in, this is a mega round up with lots of deep dives into political and economic topics!

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Jim and A.Ron have seen the highly acclaimed Netflix original, "Roma", and we're conflicted. On the one hand, we can see what it's seen as great; it's beautiful to look at, and it's final act is as good as anything you'll see anywhere and is widely accessible. The problem is that it asks you to crawl through 90 minutes tedious everyday life before you get there, which is probably the point, but it's not going to be something everyone is willing to interface with.

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Nicholas Ragovis / AKA Doctor_Nick has come to claim a commissioned podcast, the 2006 German film The Lives of Others. Written and directed by Henckel von Donnersmarck, the movie offers a look into the brutal repression and paranoia of the East German State Police during the 80s, and the effects it had on the lives of those that had to live under it. But there is hope in the form of a Stasi captain that has to confront his own conscious and humanity during an assignment to monitor an esteemed playwright.

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We've seen The Umbrella Academy and Lorena, Netflix and Amazon originals respectively. The Umbrella Academy is a smart, fun take on the X-Men universe with some Noah Hawley DNA mixed in. Lorena is a four part documentary examining the 1993 dismembering case of Lorena Bobbitt. While the case is no doubt interesting and probably a big landmark in the struggle for equality of the sexes, we're not sure this production is doing a great job of raising these issues or presenting the facts in a straightforward way.

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Jim and A.Ron saw Alita: Battle Angel tonight, and declare it a mess, albeit a beautiful, groundbreaking one in terms of effects work. This feels like the first half of the third part of a movie trilogy; everything is mysterious, nothing makes sense, the world is being built hastily and right in front of our eyes, and the movie ends right at the beginning of what promised to be a kick ass third act. But if you want to see what state of the art CG looks like in 2019, this is a shining $170 million example.

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We took a look at the latest Netflix original, High Flying Bird. Directed by Steven Soderbergh, it tells the tale of NBA management squeezing the players for a reduced share of profits during a labor dispute, and one high profile sports agent that is caught in the middle. It works on the level of a heist film, but it also works as a commentary on the power dynamics of labor in general. It's well made, well-acted, and it's final act is as thought provoking as it is fun to watch.

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Jim and A.Ron have seen The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part and it's almost if not just as good as the first one. Father/son relational dynamics take a back seat to big bro/little sis dynamics for the sequel, but Everything Remains Awesome. This movie is bright, colorful, funny, inventive, and packs a lot of heart. Go see it unless your inner child is dead and your heart is gripped by icy black despair. In which case I'd recommend The Lego Batman Movie, instead.

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Special thanks to Hatorian, who by right of conquest in the Bald Move Fantasy Football leagues has won a commissioned podcast. He has chosen wisely, selecting The Shawshank Redemption. This is a nearly perfect piece of filmmaking, with a confidence in pacing and direction from Frank Darabont matched by the nuanced work of the film's two leads, Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. We had a lot of fun watching and discussing this one Hatorian. Hopefully, it won't be the longest podcast of your life...

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Jim and A.Ron checked out the latest Netflix original film, "Velvet Buzzsaw". Directed by Dan Gilroy (Nightcrawler) and starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Rene Russo. It functions well enough as a horror story, a farcical look at art criticism, as well as an introspective look at the creative process and the related critical process. We have quibbles here and there, but the film looks great, has some inventive/gruesome deaths, and the main cast has a lot of fun being terrible people.

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Jim and A.Ron give their thoughts and opinions on the entire first season of Netflix's Korean medieval zombie series, Kingdom, as well as the first two episodes of Black Earth Rising.

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Welcome to the fifth annual Baldies Awards, the most prestigious Cincinnati-based podcast fake awards show on the planet, where we honor the outstanding achievements in film, television, and Bald Move podcasting for the year! This is the main event, the 2017 Baldies Awards Ceremony proper. Once again we don our most formal t-shirts to hand out the Baldie gold to those deserving. Who takes home the top prize for Drama and Actor? There is sure to be fun and controversy along the way!

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Unlike many other, actual awards shows that are taken seriously by the industry, we're not content to merely rip open some envelopes and throw some confetti and that's that. Oh, no. We sweat the details and record audio and video of all the debates Jim and I have had to arrive at the winners. If you disagree with our rankings and ratings, this is the info that will hopefully explain where and why we disagree! Topics in this episode include Best Debut / Pilot, Return to Form and Best Drama...

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Unlike many other, actual awards shows that are taken seriously by the industry, we're not content to merely rip open some envelopes and throw some confetti and that's that. Oh, no. We sweat the details and record audio and video of all the debates Jim and I have had to arrive at the winners. If you disagree with our rankings and ratings, this is the info that will hopefully explain where and why we disagree! Topics in this episode include Best Female Actor, Worst Career Suicide, and Worst Disappointment.

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Unlike many other, actual awards shows that are taken seriously by the industry, we're not content to merely rip open some envelopes and throw some confetti and that's that. Oh, no. We sweat the details and record audio and video of all the debates Jim and I have had to arrive at the winners. If you disagree with our rankings and ratings, this is the info that will hopefully explain where and why we disagree! Topics in this episode include Best Male Actor and Best Commission...

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Unlike other, actual awards shows that are taken seriously by the industry, we're not content to merely rip open some envelopes and throw some confetti and that's that. We sweat the details and record audio and video of all the debates Jim and I have had to arrive at the winners. If you disagree with our rankings and ratings, this is the info that will hopefully explain why we disagree! Topics in this episode include Biggest Miss, Biggest Surprise, Comedy, and Most Under-Appreciated Bald Move Content...

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Jim and I have seen the new Netflix original movie, "Polar". Based on a graphic novel of the same name, "Polar" is an ultraviolent revenge flick combining elements from "John Wick", "Crank", and "Sin City" with an engaging and energetic performance from Mads Mikkelsen as anaaginh hitman. Unfortunately, it's also a tonal mess, careening from slap stick humor to gory horror and back again, never sure of when to take itself seriously and commit to a point of view.

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Unfortunately, while it is clearly the second best DCU film after Wonderwoman, in our opinion it's not nearly that good, and is still trying to play catch up to their more marvelous competition. Like a lot of these DC properties, it feels equally rushed and bloated, as if they stuffed three Aquaman movies into one. Any one act of this movie would have made an excellent installment of a kickass Aquaman trilogy, given a chance to breathe and establish their characters our connection to them. 

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Netflix and Hulu had dueling documentaries on Fyre festival. With slightly different focuses, the documentaries broadly outline how founder Billy McFarland built several ponzi schemes on the idea of selling a fictionalized "baller" lifestyle to young, naive, rich people and took them for a ride. We discuss influencing, the morality of excess, and engage in the kind of barely contained glee at seeing narcissists fall from grace that you'd expect in this discussion of all things Fyre.

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Woof. Jim and I really, really wanted to like Glass, the sequel to the terrific Unbreakable and Split. And it should work. Bruce Willis, Samuel Jackson, and Anya Joy Taylor are good, and James McAvoy does more incredible work as the Horde. But the script is just about the laziest damn thing we've ever seen. Tons of plotholes, characters succeeding not because of their brilliance but others' stupidity, and Shyamalan indulging the worst of his third act instincts. It's a genuine disappointment, ya'll. 

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Jim and A.Ron have explored the latest Black Mirror mindf$#%, Bandersnatch. Essentially a choose your own adventure book turned into an interactive Netflix app, Bandersnatch periodically pauses to ask you how the narrative should proceed as you attempt to guide a troubled young 1980's programmer on the cusp of creating an acclaimed video game of the same name. With branching storylines that can have outcomes that can be mundane, psychotic, or extremely meta, we ask if this is the future of television?

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We have seen Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and declare it to be one of, if not the best Spider-Men movies of all time. Amazingly fun, incredibly inspiring, spectacularly stylish, and endlessly imaginative, Spider-Verse expands the franchise in entirely new directions while maintaining the magic that makes Spider-Man great; the moral obligations of an average person who is blessed with great power.

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We draw the Season of the Cage to a close with its namesake movie, Season of the Witch. Does a movie starring Nicolas Cage, Ron Perlman, Claire Foy, and that guy who played Al Capone in Boardwalk Empire actually deserve a viewing? A.Ron and I certainly have an opinion.

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The Romanoffs arrives at the finish line in "The One That Holds Everything". If you were hoping that this would be the one that brings into focus Weiner's thesis for The Romanoffs, you'll probably be disappointed. An ambitious story framing device that doesn't quite work leads to a surprise ending that doesn't feel earned, and we're left at the end of it all confused and asking "why?" What is so fascinating about the Romanovs that justifies the time and expense that went into making this, or watching it?

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Have you ever seen Nicolas Cage make a phonecall while wearing plastic vampire teeth? Have you seen him shout and gesticulate his way through the entire alphabet? Have you seen him literally say "boo hoo" while crying? No? Then you certainly haven't seen Vampire's Kiss, which is in the running for "Cage-iest" movie of all time. 

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We got a one-two punch to our nostalgia as Creed 2 relentlessly broke us and a theater full of Rocky diehards down. Up and coming director Steven Caple Jr. recaptures the magic of the original Creed, Michael B. Jordan is amazing as always, Sylvester Stallone continues to age like fine wine into the role he was born to play, and Tessa Thompson once again shows that playing a boxer's wife/girlfriend doesn't require you to be a human wet blanket. If you're a Rocky fan, you're going to like this film.

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This, by our estimation, is the second best episode of The Romanoffs, but that's not saying much about "End of the Line". It features fairly engaging material involving a couple desperate to have a child engaging in grey-market adoption shenanigans in Russia, and the man and woman in question are appealing and sympathetic as leads. The script also approaches "crackling" in places, as these potential parents fight over how far they're willing to go and what compromises they'll accept for their child.

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Multiple viewings and hours of sober reflection have led us both to believe that Con Air is a bad movie. The plot is contrived, the accents are awful, and it's perhaps the least "Cagey" performance in Cage's entire career. And yet, maybe based on star-power alone, it remains a classic which simply must be watched.

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Jim and A.Ron think this latest episode of Amazon's The Romanoffs, "Panorama" is a mess. At best, it's a mildly interesting yet gorgeous travelogue for Mexico City. At worst, it's a poorly, written, directed, acted, and edited mess that has no idea what it wants to say, and is unable to grasp any of the subjects it reaches for. The only thing that kind of works is the relationship between the two ridiculously photogenic protagonists, but they are also the least interesting of the premises.

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Another split decision on the latest first run Bald Movie, the WW2-themed action-horror film, Overlord. The serious and somber tone set against the gonzo and outrageous action quickly lost Jim. I thought the film delivered a pretty solid war film, followed by a tense and effective horror film, then rounded into a solid action romp that unfortunately started collapsing under the weight of too many action movie tropes. 

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We're back with a review of Charlie Kaufman's 2002 "look-mom-I-wrote-myself-into-this-movie-about-orchids" classic, Adaptation. It's a real noodle-bender which features one of Nicolas Cage's finest performances. Fitting, since it puts a bow on the Summer portion of Season of the Cage.

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The Deuce wrapped up it's 2nd season in style, with "Inside the Pretend". Simon and Pelecanos did an admirable job putting all their players in position to make the jump to the 80's. The pimps seem on the wane, the porn industry is still waxing, but the men and women of the industry don't seem to be enjoying their ascent as much as it would have seemed at this season's outset. It's hard to have a sunny outlook when people you care about wind up dead; that goes double when you're the one doing the killing.

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The fifth episode of Amazon's The Romanoffs has something to say, but we're not sure what it is, if it's worth saying, and if Matthew Weiner is the right spokesperson for the message, which seems to be; the worst thing you can be accused of is accusing somebody else of something they didn't do. Regardless of how we felt about the themes at play, the presentation left a lot to be desired as well, featuring clunky dialog and either stagey acting and/or bizarre editing choices or both.

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Jim and I had a helluva lot of fun seeing the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody tonight, starring Rami Malek. It's getting mixed reviews, but we're struggling to understand why. Malek does an incredible job embodying the greatest rock band front man of all time, the soundtrack is just literally all of the greatest Queen hits, so what's not to like? Unless the movie tells just truly egregious and hateful lies about Mr. Mercury, which we're not in a position to verify, we can't see much not to like.

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The Season of the Cage continues with another of Nicolas Cage's best films, The Weather Man (2005). He plays a well-payed Chicago weather man who would have the perfect life if only he could make his father proud, get the job of his dreams, win back his ex-wife, and stop ruining the lives of his children. Will Cage's raging summer ever end? Yeah, of course it will, so enjoy it while it lasts.

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Welcome to Cecily and A.Ron's second annual Cinema Spooktacular, volume two! Ghosts and witches and cults and cannibals and werewolves, oh my! On this podcast, we discuss... 00:00:00 - Intro and spoiler free reviews of all subjects featured 00:15:22 - The Haunting of Hill House 00:37:33 - Chilling Adventures of Sabrina 00:51:52 - Apostle 00:58:05 - Raw 01:02:52 - Wildling

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Jim and A.Ron are here to gush about the penultimate episode of this season's The Deuce, "Nobody Has to Get Hurt". Of course, that means that someone will have to. The person who gets the hammer felt shocking and also inevitable in hindsight. There's a lot of story left to unfold, the question now is how much resolution will we get and how much will be irrelevant once the show fast forwards to the 80's. We consider Eileen's career trajectory, Frankie tempting fate, the fall of House Pimp, and much more.

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Jim and A.Ron have a split decision on the forth episode of Amazon's The Romanoffs, "Expectations". A.Ron found it pointless and borderline unwatchable, where Jim was drawn into the human element of Amanda Peet's Julia struggling to deal with a secret that has been weighing on her conscience for 20 years. Regardless, the episode does feature engaging performances from very likable stars (the previously mentioned Peet, and John Slattery). What did you think? Tell us using the contact info below!

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Michael was nice enough to commission this podcast in honor of his wife, Susanna. Michael wanted to recognize and celebrate the hundreds of people that collectively make our favorite movies and television shows possible. Using "Star Wars Within A Minute" as a guide, we go department by department to talk about the things they contribute to your average Hollywood blockbuster. Whether you're moved to sit through credits or perhaps look for a local project to get involved in, we hope you enjoy this podcast.

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