Mildly Pleased

It’s wedding season at Mildly Pleased, so we took a look at one of the most wedding-fetishizing romantic comedies ever made. You won’t believe how many dresses Katherine Heigl wears! Or perhaps you will, because it’s right there in the title. Either way, the boys have fun discussing the rise and fall of Miss Heigl, […]

After talking about Flash Gordon two episodes ago, it seemed only fitting that we review Barbarella, producer Dino De Laurentiis’s first foray into sci-fi comic book adaptation. Of course, this one has a much dirtier mind, stemming from director Roger Vadim’s eagerness to bring campy eroticism into the far reaches of space with the help […]

Why did we choose to cover the 2000 flop, The Legend of Bagger Vance on this episode of The Pick? Well, you’ll just have to listen to find out. Mostly, we were just hoping that it was secretly a charming little magic-tinged film that transcended its problematic title character, but perhaps that was too tall […]

We’re not saviors of the universe, but we will save every one of us from subpar movie fandom. That’s right, The Pick is back with a look at the 1980 revival of the legendary comic book character, Flash Gordon. We get a bit into the history of this ancient franchise as well as the various […]

We’re already a month and a half into 2025, but with the release of the year’s first blockbuster this weekend (Captain America: Brave New World), the year in movies is just getting started. As is tradition, we once again get together to talk about the movies we’re looking forward to the most in the coming […]

Perhaps it’s fitting to take this depressing inauguration day (and unfortunate MLK Jr. Day) to reflect on what an ill-fated year 2024 was. However, we here at Mildly Pleased sat down once again, like we do every year, to reflect on the things that were pretty good but not great from the past year. Sure, […]

Before the holidays are upon us, we thought we’d drop a little bonus pod as a gift to anyone willing to hear us grumble about a half-baked Dwayne Johnson/Chris Evans vehicle. Here, we review the biggest Christmas movie of this holiday season, Red One, even if its bigness is by its own design and not […]

This will be our last episode of The Pick for a few months, and luckily we picked a fun one. On this episode, we review Battle Beyond The Stars, both as a tribute to legendary producer Roger Corman (who passed away last month) and also as a tribute to the enthusiasm we once had for […]

Despite the gap, we keep things in line with our previous episode by staying in the heist genre in this episode with the Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges vehicle Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. Though things had changed a bit in the heist movie by the time of the film’s 1971 release, there are still plenty of […]

Do you know where you are? You’re in The Asphalt Jungle, baby. And you’re gonna see some guys die! Or just get caught while trying to pull off a heist. This episode, we’re keeping it in the ’50s again with one of the more influential caper flicks of all time, while also looking a bit […]

This episode, we’re getting a little antsy while talking about those giant invasive species from 1954’s Them! We’re celebrating the film’s 70th anniversary by taking a look at the era of 3-D glasses, communist paranoia, and giant monsters borne of the atomic bomb. There’s also plenty of talk regarding the Wilhelm scream, the legendary stock […]

This week on The Pick, we’re going back to the ’90s (again) and back to David Cronenberg (again) by taking a look at 1999’s eXistenZ (which is not pronounced how you’d think). Yet, despite the familiarity inherent in this episode’s Pick, it’s far from a run-of-the-mill movie, even if it does feel fairly par for […]

We are, once again, back. We’re also back on our bullshit reviewing a movie with a cult following and a strange cultural footprint that we’ve been meaning to get to the bottom of. In honor of its 30th anniversary, we’re taking a look at Cabin Boy, the first and only big-screen collaboration between Chris Elliott […]

After a bizarre year for cinema, we set our sights on… possibly another bizarre year for cinema. That’s right, we’re doing our annual look ahead to our most anticipated (and least anticipated movies) of the new year. In 2024, superhero movies seem to be out (unless you’re talking about our least anticipated list) and what’s […]

Just when you thought 2023 was over, we’re here to take a slightly belated look back at the year that was. Kicking things off before we get into posting our Top Tens of 2023 over on Mildly Pleased is, of course, the award show that bears the site’s name. We’re talking about awarding the “good […]

Every time an underrated Christmas movie is acknowledged, an angel gets its wings. Or at least, that’s what we’d like to think after talking about The Preacher’s Wife, a Christmas movie that we enjoyed quite a bit despite it not being one of the big holiday movies everybody watches this time of year. We delve […]

We’re back in romantic comedyland, looking once again at Richard Curtis’s wish-fulfillment shenanigans (and another Julia Roberts movie) with a discussion of 1999’s Notting Hill. Even though we split on this one, it’s a fairly cordial conversation full of British accents and debate over the charms (or lack thereof) contained by its co-star Hugh Grant. […]

Needless to say, the gap between this latest and our last episode hasn’t been all that… brief. It wasn’t helped by the fact that The Pelican Brief is an overwhelming passable but unremarkable film, and one that pales a bit compared to some of the other John Grisham adaptations that were filling multiplexes in the […]

We end this Shocktober (for the most part) with a movie that’s hard to even categorize as a horror movie, even if it tackles one of the most iconic movie monsters. 1994’s Wolf sees the odd pairing of Mike Nichols’ actor-centric directing with modern-day werewolves and the results are… pretty fun if you’re willing to […]

As we make our way through Shocktober, this week we take a look at a horror movie of sorts (or perhaps an “erotic fantasy”) with the 1982 remake of Cat People. We discuss how effectively the film expands on its horror-noir inspiration and whether director Paul Schrader was the best person to bring this source […]

We’re rollin’ in with another episode of The Pick, this one aimed at the helicopter-fueled action flick Blue Thunder from 1983. We discuss pretty much every aspect of its modest cultural imprint, including its short-lived TV adaptation, as well as our fondness for its stars, Roy Scheider and John’s good friend Malcolm MacDowell. Weirdly enough, […]

After our usual summer break, The Pick is back with another batch of episodes that we kick off with 1999’s Mystery Men. What started as an intended tribute to the late Paul Reubens also ended up being a tribute to Smash Mouth frontman Steve Harwell, who also passed away before we recorded this episode. We […]

Since this will be our last episode of The Pick for a little while, it’s overstuffed with plenty to keep you satisfied as we set our sights on Criterion Month. Not only do we review both 2008’s Mamma Mia! and its questionable yet miraculous sequel, we also sneak in a mini-review of Fast X, which […]

With Fast X currently in theaters, we’re taking a look back at Vin Diesel’s early career, back when he wasn’t exclusively racing cars and being Groot in movies. However, what we didn’t expect when picking Boiler Room was that we’d actually be getting a whole lot of Giovanni Ribisi, which was just as much of […]

This week we’re talkin’ baseball in honor of the plethora of sports going on now by taking a look at a movie celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, 42. It’s a movie that’s plenty likable but probably could’ve been better if it had been put in the hands of a director more distinct than Hollywood […]

If for some reason you’re looking for real sickos content, then look no further than our discussion of the 2003 remake of the furry horror flick Willard. It’s perhaps the most divided response the three of us have had to a movie reviewed on The Pick, since one of us liked the movie quite a […]

Your wish is our command! Assuming your wish was for us to record a somewhat delayed review of an 8-month-old movie that not enough people saw in theaters. This week we’re talking about George Miller’s strange and sultry follow-up to Mad Max: Fury Road while also providing a brief history of djinns as well as […]

After our usual end-of-the-year and Oscar-induced break, we’re back with another season of The Pick! On the eve of a new Mario movie coming out this week, we take a look back at the first time Hollywood attempted to bring this massively popular but hard-to-adapt property to the big screen. So far, reviews of the […]

After looking backing at 2022, we finally turn our eyes to the future. While the film industry is still in somewhat of a weird place, there is still plenty to be excited about for the coming year in film. Well, there’s also plenty to be a less excited about as well, since there is (as […]

For the first time in what feels like a while, the year preceding our new one doesn’t feel like it would be entirely painful to revisit. In fact, it could be a mildly pleasing endeavor. That’s why we’re once again looking back at the year in things that were good but not great. Whether it […]

We just couldn’t close out this year on Mildly Pleased or The Pick without getting wet and wild while learning the way of water. It’s a super-sized episode for a super-sized film, which includes a journey through the life and career of James Cameron and how he ended up at such an award-winning and financially […]

We three kings bring curiosity for Ben Affleck’s early stardom on this holiday installment of The Pick. The episode is a dive into the year 2000’s somewhat forgotten Reindeer Games, the last film directed by John Frankenheimer and the first to ask what would happen if a bunch of incompetent criminals robbed a casino while […]

This episode took us a little while to record, since our own Sean Lemme was busy moving into a new house, not unlike Tom Hanks and Shelley Duvall in this episode’s film, albeit with less destruction. As our lone Hanks-giving pick this year (if you can even call it that considering it’s December), the movie […]

With spooky season coming to a close, we spend some time in the residence of the ookiest of all families, The Addamses. We do this by first delving into the history of this fictional family that originated with Charles Addams’ New Yorker cartoon that was turned into a TV show that has always seemed to […]

This time on The Pick it is, unfortunately, morbin’ time. In the midst of Shocktober season, we dive into the recent film portrayal of one of the spookier superhero villains and live to regret it. This is quite possibly the worst movie we’ve reviewed so far on The Pick, but that doesn’t mean we don’t […]

There wasn’t any specific tie-in or reason really for us to be talking about the 1986 animated Transformers movie, other than the fact that Sean and John bought the movie on blu-ray a while ago and have needed a reason to watch it. Regardless, it gives us an opportunity to talk about the history of […]

After a summer break from podcasting, we’re back with The Pick to talk about one of the more acclaimed movies directed by the recently departed Wolfgang Peterson, 1993’s In The Line of Fire. It’s a movie that somehow we had all not seen until now and that despite being nearly 30 years old, features a […]

Since it is wedding season, we’re taking a look at the biggest, fattest, Greekest one the movies have ever seen. John’s got some bones to pick with this light and breezy romantic comedy, while also marveling at the fact that it was an absolute monster hit back in 2002. Also, since this is the end […]

This time around, we round out our trio of episodes looking at The Wachowskis’ misunderstood non-Matrix movies. We discuss why this one has had less of a cult following than Speed Racer or Cloud Atlas since its release, as well as why audiences didn’t connect with it at the time despite its efforts to craft […]

We’re back with another sleazy movie from the ’90s with one of the most-parodied movies of its time, Basic Instinct. We dig a little bit into the movie’s status as one of the quintessential erotic thrillers as well as how Michael Douglas came to embody this very particular type of sexy murder mystery. We try […]

Only in New York! This week we’re taking a look at a decidedly sinister and satanic look at NYC with the supernatural lawyer oddity that is The Devil’s Advocate. We discuss both Keanu Reeves’s perplexing accent as well as how Al Pacino arrived at the bombastic persona he embraced in the ’90s. Pacino’s turn as […]

We’re a little late in posting this tribute to the late, great William Hurt. But hey, it’s always a good time to get in the tank. This episode, we go deep into this hard-to-classify sci-fi/horror oddity about a university scientist who goes from experiments in sensory deprivation tanks to drug-induced hallucinations to becoming a violent […]

This time on The Pick, we take a break from Oscar talk to focus on that damn caped crusader who’s back in theaters again. After sharing some thoughts on The Batman, we delve into a deeper conversation about 1997’s Batman & Robin, a movie notorious for sinking the run of blockbusters that started with Tim […]

The gang’s all here for an especially sneaky episode of The Pick! After a lengthy break, we’re back with a tribute to perhaps the most legendary actor we’ve lost so far this year — Sidney Poitier. Of course, we do it by picking the movie of his that is most in line with this podcast’s […]

We’ve got another pretty long podcast this week as we finally look to the future by sharing our most anticipated (and unanticipated) movies of 2022. Much like last year, it’s hard to say with confidence that every single one of these will be released over the course of the year, though this skepticism prompted Sean […]

2021 wasn’t the worst year ever… technically. But it also wasn’t anything approaching mildly pleasing. Still, as has been the case for ten years now, we once again convene to celebrate the year’s achievements in pop culture that was good but not great. This time, we opted to cut out some categories that didn’t seem […]

Merry Hanksmas! So… the last movie in our Hanksgiving trilogy of episodes took us a little longer to finish. Some of this could be due to how long Cloud Atlas (and the movie we reviewed before it) is, and some of it could be due to the fact that we’re just not very good at […]

Hanksgiving continues with what might be Tom Hanks’ longest movie (don’t quote me on that), The Green Mile. We dive into its Steven King origins and how director Frank Darabont has been one of King’s more successful adaptors, even if he can’t seem to get a movie made these days. We also have a little […]

Happy Hanksgiving, everyone! That’s right. Throughout the month of November, we’ll exclusively be reviewing Tom Hanks movies on The Pick, since why not spend some time with America’s Dad before you’re forced to do the same with your own family in a few weeks? We start things off with The ‘Burbs, a movie that came […]

Well, it finally happened. We’ve finally arrived at the release of Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Dune, a film we’ve been waiting for ever since the three of us (plus Matt Carstens) did a Dune book club during the early days of the pandemic and then did an episode of The Pick talking about the book […]