Movie Schmovie

After a few weeks of radio silence, Ron, Steve, and John are back! Join them as they check into a hotel room nightmare with 2007's Vacancy, find out what's going on with Austin Butler's new crime thriller, Caught Stealing, and get ready for the next level of horror from the mind behind Barbarian with Weapons. And as a special treat, they’ll get caught up on the first two episodes of Peacemaker: Season 2. 

There will be no regular show this week, but Ron, Steve, and John will appear as guests on THE MCU’S BLEEDING EDGE’s Youtube channel, to discuss the two-episode premiere of FX’s much-anticipated series Alien: Earth. The live stream starts at 9:35 EST on Wednesday, August 13th, and will be archived later.

Steve’s low-key Required Viewing pick, a naturalistic baseball movie called Eephus, is discussed, as are a couple of new releases in theaters now, Together and The Naked Gun. John also enthuses about the latest books to arrive on his stack, and Steve catches up with recent movies after a few “down weeks.”

There’s nothing Ron, Steve, and John can’t do with a podcast. This week, though, they do precisely three things: talk about Tony Scott’s 1990 racing drama Days of Thunder, talk about the new Fantastic Four movie and what it means for the MCU, and talk about something known as “other stuff.” It’s conversation time!

John’s Required Viewing pick is director Carl Franklin’s 1995 noir thriller Devil in a Blue Dress. The guys discuss the film’s star-making turn from Don Cheadle, the screen presence of Denzel Washington, and why we never got any sequels. Then it’s time to assess the first full trailer for Stranger Things’s anticipated fifth season, as well as other recent news. Finally, Ronald talks about a unique screening of Hung Up on a Dream: The Zombies Documentary that he just attended.

The guys finally get around to Steve’s Required Viewing pick, Deep Cover, a light British spy spoof not to be confused with the 1992 thriller of the same name starring Lawrence Fishburne (which was covered back in episode 385). Then they all discuss recent things they’ve watched, and the show wraps up with Ron and John enthusing about James Gunn’s new take on Superman.

This is what we used to call a catchup eppy! I guess we still call it that. Anyway, no Required Viewing this week (patience), but the guys scrounge up enough recent stuff to cover, even so. Enjoy!

Is there anything scarier than a clown... in a cornfield? We’re about to find out! This week, Ronald's Required Viewing puts 2025’s Clown in a Cornfield front and center. Is it a new slasher classic or just a really bad dream? We’ll tell you! Then the guys dive into some franchise resurrections, like the much-anticipated Jurassic World: Rebirth and Danny Boyle's return to the zombie apocalypse with 28 Years Later. Tune in for all the movie madness!

John’s Required Viewing pick this week is Superman III, the campy 1983 entry in Christopher Reeve’s classic film series, featuring Richard Pryor as a morally dubious computer programmer. Then the guys run down a few other things they’ve seen, like Celine Song’s The Materialists and the live-action re-do of Lilo & Stitch.

Ron, Steve, and John assess The Assessment—a new-ish sci-fi/psychological thriller picked by Steve for this week’s Required Viewing—before moving on to a few other recent movies and shows, including Ballerina (the action-packed John Wick spinoff) and Wes Anderson’s latest deadpan character study, The Phoenician Scheme.