Cut and Splice: Reviewing, discussing and analyzing movies

We give a 15 minute review for this romp of a silent movie before getting into the details. We later take a couple of detours towards the end and also tease our next release.

We give a 13 minute review before getting into spoilers on this Sci-Fi epic that has grown in popularity over the years and is slowly cementing itself as a classic.

In this bonus episode we briefly discuss some of the better examples of "landing the plane" properly in trilogies and other cases where third movies worked well or not.

We give a 29 minute review of this nebulous journey into the unknown before getting into spoilers.Somehow Inception's ending rears its head and we revisit that debate while trying to crack some of the meaning and themes explored in this piece.

We give a 31 minute review of these two sci-fi epics before getting into the details in comparing and contrasting their style, story and themes.There are some spoilers for 2001 in the review portion, but it's also a tough movie to spoil.

The tail end of our last episode took us in various directions worth sharing separately.We start by discussing a couple of other movies relating to death. Jason ranks Shawn Levy's movies. We give some thoughts about Ben Stiller, Ryan Reynolds and Ben Affleck. We also discuss other comedy directors and the trend of some of them moving into other genres. Lastly we touch on when politics gets mixed up with movies as also relates to Kevin Costner's Horizon Saga.

We give a 19 minute review before getting into spoilers on this comedy with a blockbuster cast that dabbles in the Jewish grieving ritual of Shiva.Gil gets to share and contrast his own experience of the ritual while mourning his mother in Israel.

We give an 18 minute review before getting into spoilers on what is likely George Clooney's most substantial contribution to movies as a filmmaker. An underappreciated gem that still feels current to where we are. We get to discuss a little bit of what the media landscape has become and how it relates to the themes explored in the film.

Our friend Avihai joins us for this discussion about Snyder's big Sci-Fi swing which he was a crew member on. He shares some fun details about the production.We give a 30 minute review before getting into details and also spoil Seven Samurai and Magnificent Seven along the way.We also bring up other topics such as the rise of the director/cinematographer and the popularity of the docuseries in the age of streaming.

We have a second go at our directors cage match. This one was closer than the last.We get to delve into most of their movies as well as compare and contrast their careers and styles.

The camera steals the show in this propaganda movie which we've long been meaning to discuss. It's a tough movie to spoil but we're mostly spoiler free for the first 35 minutes before getting into more details.Gil also shares the experience he had showing the movie to his late mother in law Susy who was born in Cuba and spent her early years there.She passed away close to a year ago after a long battle with cancer. We dedicate this episode to her.

Our Dune episode devolved into an argument about whether it is Sci-Fi at all and what are the common differences between Sci-Fi and fantasy.Along the way we spoil movies such as Moon, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Ender's Game.

We delve into the recent Dune movies along with our resident Dune expert, Jason. We start with a 20 minute review before getting into spoilers which involve some disagreements between us.

Probably our longest episode to date, it was too epic to fit in one recording session, mostly cause we lost Matt halfway through and had to pick it up on a second session. We do a quick review and rankings in the first 14 minutes before getting into spoilers. There was a lot of praising, but also noting the various ham sandwiches Nolan was serving.

We talk about all things trilogies using an old meme as a jumping off point. This will lead us into our next major episode which is related to the subject. Check out the meme on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=574474745173477&set=a.163729132914709

We start with a 21 minute review and bring up our favorite Dennis Quaid performances. From there we go into spoilers and get into a far ranging conversation about various conflicts around the world, the connection this movie has to "The Searchers", the cars and weapons used in the movie, and end with touching on how a version of the game "heads up, seven up" is played in Israel. We also foreshadow our Spielberg V. Scorsese episode which we recorded after but posted earlier.

We take a few minutes to discuss the various Star Trek movies and veer in other directions along the way. Matt also tells us about the time he met Leonard Nimoy.

Different timeline, same franchise. We spend 27 minutes reviewing both movies before going into spoilers and continue the comparing of the older to the newer.

We take a few minutes to discuss Eric Bana and Matt brings up the infamous and defunct Genesis camera.

We compare these two prolific giants of American Cinema. Along the way we spoil Shutter Island, Minority Report and Munich.

We went on a little unplanned hiatus but after 100 or so episodes, we are looking forward to sharing the next 100. We give a 26 minute review before getting into spoilers and delving into the moral complexities of this John Grisham adaptation. Later on we also spoil Get Out, so beware if you haven't seen it.

Gil finally got around to seeing the first John Wick and was troubled by what he saw that he had to share and get some feedback from Jason and Matt.

Jason subjects Gil and Matt to this objectionable piece of...cinema? We start with a 23 minute review before getting into the gory details.

Amusingly in our last episode we couldn't get a good answer from Matt about his favorite childhood movies only to end up doing a full episode about one of his favorites as a kid. We start with a 31 minute review which involves a discussion about board games and we then get into the details of this who done it mystery.

We had a short discussion about some memorable kids movies from our youth which led to a conversation about how actors age.

We tackle James Gunn's trilogy, starting with an 18 minute review before getting into spoilers. Our friend Andrew joins us with some strong words against Vol. 2 and Jason coming to its defense.

We have a short discussion about the phenomena of disgraced actors from me too to other reasons why some talented people derail their careers and fall out of favor.

We start with a 36 minute review before getting into the spoilers of this one location showdown. We bring up Cillian Murphy and date the recording by wishing him that he'll get his Oscar for Oppenheimer.

In our Tropic Thunder discussion Matt brought up Babylon as an example of a movie that was about Hollywood, only with a very different approach. That got us talking about some uncomfortable movies and what they are trying to achieve.

We are joined by our friend and fellow podcaster Yusuf to discuss this irreverent and yet somehow reverent comedy. We start with a 36 minute review before we get into spoilers. We also discuss directors cuts vs. theatrical and the cultural significance of the movie and comedy in general as we move to more politically correct times.

In this short segment that didn't make the cut of our Oscars episode, we talk about Nolan's goal of continuing to make big films. Denis Villeneuve comes up as well regarding a silly comment he made and we also delve into a few directors that tend to go too far in their attempt to be unique.

We delve into some of the nominees, mention our favorites from the ones we've seen and sing Margot Robbie's praises. Quick correction: Anatomy of a Fall is mentioned to be a German film but it's a French film with a German actress.

In order to not derail our Oscars episode by delving too much into Barbie, we decided to give it a bonus episode before we deal with the rest of the movies.

We had a bit too much fun discussing this over the top movie. We start with a 27 minute review before getting into the themes and bloody details.

We took a few minutes to bring up our favorite westerns and discuss the genre as a whole.

We start with an 18 minute review of this intimate yet exciting western from Kevin Costner before getting into spoilers. We also get to discuss some of the ways in which the west actually was, compared to how it was presented in many westerns.

We have a short discussion about movies that should not be remade and give examples of remakes that were ill advised, as well as some movies that could be remade.

Our musician friend Mike Maye joins us for a discussion about this film which tracks the rise to fame of some of the most influential African American musicians and artists of the 50's and 60's. We give a 32 minute review before getting into spoilers.

Another meme, another discussion. This one took us in the direction of exploring the state of comedy in these times of censorship and self censorship.

This week, Jason's pick takes us to the world of tank warfare between the Germans and Soviets in WWII. We give a 23 minute review before getting into spoilers and dive deeper into all that is wrong and some that is right about this Russian extravaganza.

In this final episode of Israel month, we talk about antisemitism and as a whole the way history is relayed in movies, bringing up movies such as Oppenheimer and Gettysburg. We also talk about the generational divide in opinions and leadership.

This was recorded prior to the events on October 7th and was due to be released much later, but we felt it was appropriate to release it after Waltz with Bashir given the situation. We give a 25 minute review before getting into spoilers and along the way discuss some of the history regarding the wars of Israel.

In one of our last recordings, Gil took some time to give details on how it felt being in Israel when the war broke out on October 7th and what it was like trying to make it out of there. This is part of our month long focus on the conflict with another movie coming up as well as further discussion about the issue in another bonus episode.

In an unplanned coincidence, the next movie in our pipeline is a self reflective Israeli movie dealing with an aspect of the conflict in the middle east. We give a 21 minute review before getting into spoilers. We mostly avoid getting too deep into a political discussion, something we fail more so in an upcoming episode.

Our Minority Report episode went so long and in different directions that it made sense to make this second part a bonus. Here we delve into Cruise's career but begin by finalizing some thoughts about Minority Report while discussing some of the philosophy and elements and how they compare to other books and movies. The universe of Dune is brought up as well as Forest Gump and Demolition Man.

We tackle another Spielberg with our friend Andrew joining us. We start with a 27 minute review before getting into the spoilers and details of this complicated dystopian affair.

Our Primer discussion got us talking about the various stand out ultra low budget movies of the past such as Pi, Following, Clerks, El Mariachi and others.

We tackle another mind bending time travel movie and provide a 15 minute review before getting into spoilers.

Part of our Thin Red Line discussion got us on a short tangent about Voice Over in movies.

In our first sanctioned episode of sorts, our friend LaJuan, who knows Terrence Malick, joins us for a discussion about this art house war movie. He also notified him about us discussing it and got his blessing. We give a 17 minute review before getting into spoilers.