The Rewind Movie Podcast

We're flying high over Tupelo, Mississippi with the hottest band in America...and we're all about to die. Today's film-chooser Gali is joined on the road by Devlin and Patrick to revisit Cameron Crowe's OSCAR-winning rock 'n roll bildungsroman Almost Famous.

15 year old aspiring rock journalist William Miller (Patrick Fugit) catches the break of a lifetime after a chance encounter with one of his favourite bands coincides with an offer from Rolling Stone magazine and he takes off to cover Stillwater's 1973 tour. With some sage, albeit cynical words from hero Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman) ringing in his ears, William finds himself drawn in to the world of charismatic guitarist Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup) and enigmatic "Band Aid" Penny Lane (a star-making turn for Kate Hudson), much to the dismay of his well-meaning but fierce mother (Frances McDormand).

Sharing the only true currency that means anything in this bankrupt world, our uncool hosts dive back in to their own wide-eyed teen years and check in 20 years later to see if their now crow-feet riddled, thirty-something eyes can still well up with joy when Tiny Dancer hits.

If you have any questions, comments or ideas for future episodes you can contact us on Twitter @rewindmoviecast, @galithegreek (Gali), @QuillLicker (Devlin) and @PatrickWaggett (Patrick) or join our Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/rewindmoviecast/ 

DINNER’S OVER, WORM DUDE. Bill S. Preston, Esq. and “Ted” Theodore Logan return from their travels across time in Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, with our heroes seemingly no closer to fulfilling the prophecy that Wyld Stallyns' most excellent music will unite the world and lead to a glorious, utopian future.

In fact, they are stuck in a run-down apartment working for nothing but pretzels and cheese. And things take a turn for the worse when a pair of evil robot doppelgangers turn up and throw them from a cliff to their deaths. Not that this is the end – after giving Death himself the slip with a severe Melvin, they set out on a race against time to save the future from the villainous gym teacher Chuck De Nomolos.

On this episode we are delighted to be joined by Richard Jackson, of the YouTube review channel Val Verde Broadcasting. Along with co-hosts Gali and Devlin we discuss personal hells, Nerf-dart couture and illicit 1990s cable pornography as we witness more strange things afoot at the Circle K. STATION!

If you have any questions, comments or ideas for future episodes you can contact us on Twitter @rewindmoviecast, @galithegreek (Gali) and @QuillLicker (Devlin) and @its_jacksontime (Richard) 

Look, it's the gentleman guppy! Gali and Devlin are joined again by Matt, who has brought us the infamously expensive ocean-bound post-apocalyptic epic Waterworld.

In a future where the now-melted ice caps have flooded the entire planet, a nameless trimaran-piloting Mariner finds himself entwined with a former denizen of a floating trading post and her companion, a young girl with a mysterious tattoo which is rumoured to point the way to Dryland – the fabled last vestiges of non-soggy Earth left. Pursued by the villainous Deacon and his gas-guzzling Smokers, the sullen Mariner learns to be less of a dick just in time for the explosive finale.

It's a pee-drinking, dirt-selling, child-endangering extravaganza on the high seas, as Gali, Devlin and Matt discuss the career of Costner, the crazy production costs and post-production wrangles of Waterworld, and the legacy of a film widely regarded as an historic bomb. Will they find an unfairly maligned, ambitious hidden gem? Or a deservedly panned saltwater Mad Max ripoff?

If you have any questions, comments or ideas for future episodes you can contact us on Twitter @rewindmoviecast, @galithegreek (Gali) and @QuillLicker (Devlin) and @scariousartists (Matt).

Nice work, Bone Daddy! On today’s super spooky episode, Patrick has a suspiciously serpentine present for us all: the stop motion animated classic The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Pumpkin King Jack Skellington may be the toast of Halloween Town, but an indefinable melancholy leads him seek something else, something he finds when stumbling through a mystical door and tumbling down to Christmas Town. Inspired, Jack seeks to take Christmas for himself, with delightfully macabre results.

Head down to Oogie Boogie’s dungeon and roll the dice to see whether Gali, Patrick and Devlin still have the same love they once did for this Tim Burton-produced, Henry Selick-directed childhood favourite. A hearty Merry Christmas from all of us here at The Rewind Movie Podcast, and we’ll be back in 2020 for more movie chats!

If you have any questions, comments or ideas for future episodes you can contact us on Twitter @rewindmoviecast, @galithegreek (Gali), @QuillLicker (Devlin) and @PatrickWaggett (Patrick).

It's lonely, isn't it, when you're a freak? On this Throwback episode we look at the John Carpenter-directed Chevy Chase sci-fi-romance-thriller Memoirs of an Invisible Man.

Laconic stocks analyst Nick Halloway comes to regret the hungover nap he takes while skipping a lecture at the mysterious Magnascopics Institute, when an industrial accident renders the building invisible with him trapped inside. Pursued by a hostile intelligence operative (Sam Neill) intent on acquiring this invaluable asset as a spy or killing him if he refuses, Nick hides out in a beach house and runs into the beautiful stranger (Darryl Hannah) he met the night before befalling his fate.

Marrying Hitchcockian suspense to droll, noirish narration and groundbreaking visual effects, the film was meant to be Chevy Chase’s gateway to serious acting success. Financially it didn’t play out that way, but are Devlin’s nostalgic and positive memories of the film still intact? Were new viewers Gali and Patrick as unimpressed as ticket-buyers in 1992? Join us as we discuss the career paths that led to the unusual pairing of Chase and Carpenter, rewatch one of his least heralded films, and relive Devlin’s cringeworthy night at the theatre with the venerable Mr Chase.

NOTHING CLEAN. RIGHT. On today’s episode, Gali has lined up James Cameron’s seminal sci-fi horror chase thriller The Terminator.

A lone protector versus an unstoppable assassin: future soldier Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) and a large cyborg (Arnold Schwarzenegger) are sent hurtling back in time from a post-nuclear robo-hellscape to a grimy 1984 Los Angeles, converging on unassuming waitress Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) who may just be humanity’s best hope for survival.

Inevitably mediocre impressions and an even more inevitable slating of Terminator Genisys ensue as Gali, Devlin and Patrick stump up the $4.50 entrance fee to the Tech-Noir and discuss whether the original packs the same punch as it once did, if the sequels have diluted its reputation, and why Cyberdyne manufactured cyborgs with enormous dongs.

If you have any questions, comments or ideas for future episodes you can contact us on Twitter @rewindmoviecast, @galithegreek (Gali), @QuillLicker (Devlin) and @PatrickWaggett (Patrick).

I AM THE YETI! Patrick is back on the panel and has brought the quintessential late-90s bromedy (bro comedy?) American Pie to discuss with Gali and Devlin for another Throwback episode.

Sweaty teen boys Jim, Kevin, Oz and Finch vow to lose their dreaded V-plates before high school graduation, entering a pact which sees them hatch schemes to score at the prom, while Oz’s jock buddy Stifler jeers from the sidelines and steals the film from under them. Some of them learn life lessons, some of them just learn to keep their penises out of pastries, or at least exit the kitchen before getting down to business.

Ejactulatory mechanics, toilet-based confessions and shameless quote-a-thons ensue as three supposedly grown men try their hardest not to regress to their chucklehead teen selves while discussing a generational smash hit that resonated through teen cinema for years.

If you have any questions, comments or ideas for future episodes you can contact us on Twitter @rewindmoviecast, @galithegreek (Gali), @QuillLicker (Devlin) and @PatrickWaggett (Patrick).

助けて! Gali and Devlin are back with another Pulling Focus, this time looking at Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s slow-burning ghost-in-the-machine chiller Pulse, or 回路, from 2001.

But for this special episode, we’ve widened the discussion to talk about the Japanese horror boom that surrounded it, starting with Hideo Nakata’s seminal Ring and continuing with Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-On: The Grudge. Joined once again all the way from Jeonju, South Korea by Matt, we talk archetypes, influence and, inevitably, remakes as we delve back in to the days when the West was won over by these chilling, mysterious films.

You guys up for some reggae tonight? Devlin has delved back in to his angsty late adolescence and picked the 2001 graphic novel adaptation Ghost World for this Throwback episode.

Snarky, newly graduated (well, one of them anyway) Enid and Rebecca are finally free from the tyranny of high school, but the question of what comes next tests their symbiotic friendship to breaking point. Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson) wants to find a job and an apartment to embark on the road to adulthood, while Enid (Thora Birch) continues to rebel without a cause, and finds a new partner in disgruntlement in the form of middle-aged record obsessive Seymour (Steve Buscemi).

Convenience store nunchucks, daytime Satanists, and tampons in teacups ensue, as Gali and Patrick join Devlin on this Rewind to his own shameful turn-of-the-millennium past of wallet chains and cringy sulk-metal, when he discovered this dark comedy that pulls no punches about the downsides of growing up.

If you have any questions, comments or ideas for future episodes you can contact us on Twitter @rewindmoviecast, @galithegreek (Gali), @QuillLicker (Devlin) and @PatrickWaggett (Patrick). 

NOBODY BEATS ME IN THE KITCHEN. Welcome back to the Bargain Bin, as we go full steam ahead on the 1995 Steven Seagal-starring choo-choo beat ‘em up sequel Under Siege 2: Dark Territory.

Seagal reprises his role as the stoic chef/ass-kicker Casey Ryback, accompanying his snarky teenage niece Sarah (Katherine Heigl) on a cross country train journey to her father’s graveside. When the train is taken over by a big ol’ crew of baddies led by eccentric nerdlinger Travis Dane for the purposes of using a space laser to make earthquakes (really), Ryback is in a race against time to punch literally everyone before Dane can blow up the Pentagon.

Intergalactic voyeurism, coconut explosives, Looney Tunes death scenes and 60 minute, rubber-and-leather-bondage CD-ROMs. All the way from South Korea, Matt once again joins Gali & Devlin as they venture together in to Dark Territory. Will they rediscover an action classic, or will this be a train wreck in more ways than one?

If you have any questions, comments or ideas for future episodes you can contact us on Twitter @rewindmoviecast, @galithegreek (Gali) and @QuillLicker (Devlin) and @scariousartists (Matt).  

Welcome to our series Pulling Focus, where each of our hosts introduces the other to a personally beloved film which they feel has been overlooked or underrated. This time, Gali encourages Devlin to FINALLY sit down and watch the 2000 Michael Douglas lit-com Wonder Boys, from director Curtis Hanson.

Michael Douglas’ Grady Tripp is a borderline burnt-out literature professor coasting on the reputation of his debut novel while deep in the mire of failing to produce its follow-up. His rocky romance with Frances McDormand’s university chancellor is further complicated by the appearance of his chaotic editor (Robert Downey Jr.), a troubled and earnest young upstart student in his lit. class (Tobey Maguire), and a blind, surly bulldog named Poe.

With a cast littered with Marvel movie alumni, a change-of-pace performance from Douglas, and a reputation as a box office bomb, has Gali unearthed a hidden gem for Devlin, or have its charms faded over the years?

 If you have any questions, comments or ideas for future episodes you can contact us on Twitter @rewindmoviecast, @galithegreek (Gali) and @QuillLicker (Devlin and @PatrickWaggett (Patrick).

I WANT SOME BUTTS! Gali has picked out Tony Scott's magnum opus of fighter jet machismo, 1986’s Top Gun, for this Throwback episode.

Maverick loose cannon Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) gets his shot to be the best of the best at the elite Top Gun academy, where he competes in spectacular aerial combat exercises against Val Kilmer's stone cold Ice Man while trying to attract the attentions of his instructor, Kelly McGillis' Charlie.

Harassment via karaoke, faceless Commie baddies and a guitar riff so sweet they play it 36 times - will Gali convince Devlin and Patrick to join him in the Danger Zone, or are they entering a flat spin of nostalgia before crashing spectacularly in to the mountains of cliché? 

 If you have any questions, comments or ideas for future episodes you can contact us on Twitter @rewindmoviecast, @galithegreek (Gali) and @QuillLicker (Devlin and @PatrickWaggett (Patrick).

On this episode, Devlin introduces Gali to one of his favourites, and offers an introduction to a film which has flown under the radar over the last few years: Lynne Ramsay's 1999 feature debut Ratcatcher.

James, a sensitive young boy on the cusp of adolescence, tries to navigate the rubbish strewn-streets of an East Glasgow housing estate in dustman-strike-ravaged 1973. Racked with a level of guilt for which he is emotionally unprepared after the death of a friend, he seeks an escape from his impoverished surroundings that seems impossible to achieve.

We talk about the formative works and influences of one of the most interesting filmmakers working today, as Devlin finally forces Gali to watch a film he's been recommending for 15 years. Will it be worth the wait? 

If you have any questions, comments or ideas for future episodes you can contact us on Twitter @rewindmoviecast, @galithegreek (Gali) and @QuillLicker (Devlin and @PatrickWaggett (Patrick).

BLESS YOUR BEAUTIFUL HIIIIIIIIDE! Patrick is back, and he brought the rootin'est, rootin'est, barn-danciest rip-roarin’ Western musical Seven Brides For Seven Brothers.

Large bearded man Adam rides into town to find himself a wife to bring back to his frontier ranch, but “forgets” to tell new bride Milly about his six also large brothers. While she teaches them proper manners, Adam has a different scheme to get them all married off.

Multiple jaunty kidnappings ensue, replete with spectacular dance numbers, weird lyrics about sleeping with livestock, and colour-coded fancy shirts. Will Devlin and Gali thank Patrick for introducing them to the show, or is it all a soft-shoe-shuffle too far?

 If you have any questions, comments or ideas for future episodes you can contact us on Twitter @rewindmoviecast, @galithegreek (Gali) and @QuillLicker (Devlin and @PatrickWaggett (Patrick).

きりきりきり! On this Throwback, first time Rewinder and good friend Matt joins us all the way from South Korea to discuss his first brush with Takashi Miike’s seminal romantic drama-turned-nightmare fuel Audition.

Lonely Tokyo widower Aoyama turns to an old friend in his quest to find a new wife to share his life with. His idea? An audition for a new movie, where Aoyama can take his pick of the applicants – a foregone conclusion once he sets his sights on the shy, beautiful, sensitive Asami.

And then everything turns horrible. I’m sure you know this by now, the film is 20 years old. But if not, yeah, spoilers. But has this infamous provocation retained its capacity to shock, or has it aged about as well as a dog bowl full of sick? Join Gali, Devlin and Matt as they open up the mystery sack.

 If you have any questions, comments or ideas for future episodes you can contact us on Twitter @rewindmoviecast, @galithegreek (Gali) and @QuillLicker (Devlin and @scariousartists (Matt).

GET OVER HERE! Another rummage in the bargain bin yields the 1995 beat-‘em-up video

game adaptation Mortal Kombat, directed by Paul “Not That Paul Anderson” W.S. Anderson.

A handful of fighters are chosen to defend the realm of Earth from the evil ruler of Outworld in a

brutal competition that will determine the fate of billions (he he he...sorry). Among them are a

lapsed kung fu fighter of indeterminate religion, a cocky Hollywood action star, and, um, some

sort of cop maybe?

Quips, brawls, styrofoam palaces, and oh god so much techno. Will Gali and Devlin find a

flawless victory, or will there be a FATALITY?

 If you have any questions, comments or ideas for future episodes you can contact us on Twitter @rewindmoviecast, @galithegreek (Gali) and @QuillLicker (Devlin and @PatrickWaggett (Patrick).

TATANKA! Devlin takes us on a Throwback to the never-ending Sunday afternoons of his childhood with Kevin Costner’s OSCAR-winning frontier epic DANCES WITH WOLVES.

Wounded Civil War soldier John Dunbar’s unusual act of battlefield heroism allows him to choose his next posting, and he elects for a life of seclusion in an abandoned fort at the very edge of civilisation. But his solitude is interrupted when he finds himself drawn in to the local Sioux tribe, whose curiosity and burgeoning friendship has him questioning his allegiances.

Discussions on the power of moustache characterization, appropriate fart noises, and inordinate praise for horse acting ensue. Will Gali, Patrick and Devlin share a peace pipe and bask in the magic hour glow of the Dakota plains, or will the war drums boom as opinions are let fly like arrows? It’s all on The Rewind Movie Podcast!

 If you have any questions, comments or ideas for future episodes you can contact us on Twitter @rewindmoviecast, @galithegreek (Gali) and @QuillLicker (Devlin and @PatrickWaggett (Patrick).