The Cross Cut

This week! The world is worried about men, again. The prevalent concern about masculinity has reared its head again as men are more likely to suffer from mental health issues, poor educational achievement, and gun violence than their female counterparts. We look at some of these outcomes and even take our chances at offering a few reasons this seems to keep being a topic of conversation.

For this topic, we look at David Fincher's 1999 cult classic Fight Club, where Brad Pitt plays the ubermench of Edward Norton's dreams, as well as probably many of the young male viewers of the time. We also offer our workout plan for how to get those amazing Brad Pitt abs (the secret is hallucination!)

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This week! We talk about all the latest science in renewable energy. From cold fusion (as mentioned in our film The Saint) to superconductors to the recent advances in solar and wind, we spend this week trying to give you hope that the world isn't going to end in your lifetime. Will it work? Who knows?!?!?!

This week! We cover testimony in front of the US Congress by several whistleblowers stating they have seen real life proof of alien crafts and actual alien bodies in government hands. We pair that with the classic 1997 hit Men In Black where well dressed aliens try to keep the majority of the population in the dark about alien activity.

This week! We are looking at how the fake life science in the 1997 sleeper cult classic Gattaca is starting to become more real life. Scientists (and maybe cops) are using DNA found in the world to make assumptions about populations of animals and maybe one day populations of murders. This will surely end well!

This week! I'm late getting the episode out so no show notes! Don't trust various oozes and/or green drinks!

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This week! The military reports on AI gone awry and then WHOOPS! decides that it totally, definitely didn't happen you guys. Trust us, would we ever lie to you? cough pentagon papers cough mk ultra cough panama papers cough reality winner leaks cough edward snowden COUGH!

Whenever AI starts to threaten all of humanity, of course we think Terminator 2: Judgement Day. James Cameron threw down on this 1991 hit film, so we dive in to find out exactly how he did it and what it all means in relation to modern AI. Turns out James Cameron was very smart about all this!

This week! We get BLOWN AWAY by some new science news about storm trackers. This of course means we have to cover one of the defining summer blockbusters of 1996, Twister. We talk Helen Hunt's casting, the late Bill Paxton's memorable tribute from real storm chasers, and argue over the true message of the film: love vs. data.

This week! We review (and celebrate!) Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon being fired, while comparing our current news media hellscape to the incomparable film Network. We dive into the collaboration between Paddy Chayefsky and Sidney Lumet, as well as how there reticence about the state of the media in the 1970's has more than come to fruition today. Totally chill podcast!

This week! We look into why the Finnish people have been rated the happiest people in the world for the 6th year in a row. Is there some deep dark secret to living most of the year in the deep dark? Or are there flaws in the scoring system itself?

We'll have plenty of time to consider this as we spend ten (or ten thousand?) years stuck in the same day. That's right, we're celebrating Groundhog Day over and over again trying to dissect what happiness is and if it's somehow related to Andie MacDowell.

This week! Donald Trump, the somehow 45th president of these United States, was indicted and arraigned for a crime associated with the hush money payments to pornstar Stormy Daniels. Is there a better sentence for SEO in the whole of the internet? And is the existence of that sentence worth the complete destruction of American Democracy? The answer to both is: No!

We pair this historic event with the completely forgettable Clint Eastwood film Absolute Power. Turns out both Eastwood and Trump could learn a little something about keeping it in their pants. Ah, boomer men!

Where have all of our kitchens gone??? Have they turned into ghosts?!?!

This week! We look into the rise and now fall of ghost kitchens as Uber Eats starts to prune the dead delivery denizens from their app. Who will survive and why are we covering such a lame story? The world is bad, let us just have fun!

We pair this delicious appetizer with the main course, Pixar's Ratatouille. A film about how you should let rats into you home and have them cook for you. That is definitely the lesson here.

I would write more of a description here, but I have a 5 year old whose just had a nightmare about the Big Bad Wolf, so I'm cutting it short. The movie is about the big bank collapse in 2008! There's another bank that just collapsed! You get it.

This week! We take a deep dive into the world of Huggy Wuggy, that cute/terrifying doll that kids are super into these days. Why are there so many teeth? And why are they so sharp? We answer these questions and more with the help of our guest, Iris Smith! Oh yeah, she's also our niece.

If terrifying toys are your thing, then you will love the film we are covering: M3GAN! An AI with a full human child size body, what could go wrong! Turns out, the answer is murder!

This week! We are predicting the outcome of the above-the-line awards for this year's Academy Awards, and also throwing in who we'd like to win. I'm sure we'll be disappointed!

We pair that with Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans, a semi-autobiographical film that centers around both the love of movie making and the irrevocable breakdown of a marriage. It's a good movie!

This week! We continue our march towards the 2023 Oscars with another best picture nominee: Elvis! Will Forest's general distaste for Baz Luhrmann influence his commentary on this film? Will Jesse's general apathy for Elvis as a person and musician influence the amount she cares about the film? Probably! But we do it anyway!

We pair this with a discussion of Ed Sheeran and his most recent legal troubles involving a lawsuit from the estate of Ed Townsend, one of the writers of the classic Let's Get It On by Marvin Gaye. In this episode, we act as judge and jury (and executioner?) to determine whether Sheeran stole Marvin Gaye's vibes for his song Thinking Out Loud.

This week! We are talking cruises and old people, in film and in real life. As we discuss aging Boomers turning to the sea in their later year, you can literally hear Forest's soul leave his body. Much in the same way the bodily contents leave the body of the old billionaires in the movie Triangle of Sadness!

Honestly, I can't state enough how much this new story bummed Forest out. Enjoy!

This week, we dig into our first Best Picture nominee of our month long series - Top Gun: Maverick! Tom Cruise is back in the pilot seat and flying the audience to a bright beautiful San Diego sunset in one of the most successful movies of the year.

We pair this conversation with a look at what is going on in our own skies, where the US government has had to shoot down four separate unidentified aerial phenomena over the past few weeks. What exactly is up there? And why is it aliens? We dig in this week!

We're jumping in with a quick update episode during our vacation to give you the schedule for the next few weeks. Hope you're excited!

This week we take a look at the unethical treatment of workers in the world of haute cuisine using the film The Menu. Will this episode satisfy your cravings for food puns, or will you leave starved for more? Bready or not, here we go-gurt!

So, there's a dumbass out there who's trying to fill the stratosphere with sulfur in order to reflect the light of the sun. There's no way that could go wrong, is there?

OH WAIT! There was a whole movie about a very specific, locomotive related way that could go wrong! So this week we are talking Snowpiercer, the 2013 Bong Joon-ho film that takes Chris Evens from the back of the train to the front as he searches for a way to... um... well look, he needs to get to the front of the train. Don't ask questions!

Happy New Year! We're taking this opportunity to rewind and celebrate a full year of weekly podcasts. How did we manage it? Are we extremely exhausted? Do our children remember our names? All questions we will not be answering on this episode!

Instead, we'll highlight some great takes on:

- Supply Chain Crisis

- Law School Rankings

- The James Webb Telescope

- Roe v. Wade

- NFTs

- Adnan Syed

Not only are we doing clips from the old shows, we're updating the news with new content!

Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals! To celebrate a year of podcasts, we tune in to the Christmas Classic (tm) Home Alone. The film that unleashed both Macaulay Culkin (yay!) and Chris Columbus (ugh) upon the world, as well as the idea that torture can be a fun holiday tradition!

We pair this with the recommendations of things to look out for this holiday season from the list of biggest hazards from the Poison Control Center, as well as a quick weather preview of the incoming "bomb cyclone." Happy holidays, now just try to survive them!

Stuck inside on these cold, dreary winter days? Well then grab your bathing suit and NOTHING ELSE and meet us on Fire Island! This adaptation of of Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice shakes things up by being set on a gay vacation in a beautiful location and also by being actually funny.

We pair this with the passage of the Respect for Marriage Act, a bill that enshrines the rights of currently married gay couples in the US, though it stops short of full equality. We'll talk about why that is, and who is responsible for the bullshit (hint: the same people as always.)

This week, we're looking into how some of the literal worst people in the world, but trying to combat them with some of the best people in the world.

While drag shows all across the country are being accosted by right wing nutjobs, we watched the film To Wong Fo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar to dig into the world of drag. Turns out, the good people are actually good and the bad people are bad.

This week we have a special guest on the podcast, our good friend Devin Landin (tw: @devinlandin) joins us to share his knowledge of the LSAT and law schools generally. Of course Jesse brings here experience in this area as well, and Forest does his best to keep the podcast close to an hour. Does he succeed? No!

Led by Yale and Harvard, law schools are walking away from the US News and World Reports rankings for schools, citing multiple problematic areas by which scores are both changed to produce worse results and also gamed by universities. Walking away from the official rankings may not solve all problems, but there is certainly a cause for doing so.

The primary cause is that otherwise you may not accept Elle Woods! That's right, we are covering Legally Blonde this week, so put on your pink and make sure your Prada heels are this season. From raunchy screenplay to feminist tome, the film has many twists and turns you wouldn't expect and thanks to brilliant performances, has held high esteem for decades.

Do you live in the South? If not, you might have a hard time getting the best biscuit possible. At least that is the hypothesis presented in our most recent episode, where we take a deep dive into what makes a good biscuit and why it's so hard to do outside the South, based in The Atlantic's article by Amanda Mull. We even do a test bake with two kinds of flour discussed in the article to determine the differences ourselves! Was this episode just an excuse to eat biscuits? Yes, yes it was.

We pair this delicious conversation with the classic Thanksgiving film (of which there are very few!) Planes, Trains & Automobiles. This John Hughes classic stars two comedic giants in Steve Martin and John Candy as they try to make it from New York to Chicago through a series of the worst commuting misfortunes a person has ever experienced. It's goofy, it's chaotic, and deep down inside, it has a great heart.

The world is a cruel sick place and someone has to stop those who would seek to harm us! Such is the state of our world, which is why we chose to cover the midterm elections. To be clear, the future of American government is on the line. Do you want minority rule and the entrenchment of power in an unelected group? Or do you want to vote for Democrats? The choice is that easy.

The world is a cruel sick place and someone has to stop those who would seek to harm us! That is also the thesis of the film Election! What a pleasant coincidence. The young Tracy Flick tries her best to become student body president while her teacher Jim McAllister does everything he can to stop her. Brilliant performances by Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick list the film from typical teen farce to something else entirely, but is there a surprise twist behind this tale of adults abusing teenagers? Listen to find out!

This week, individuals from the Chinese government have been formally charged by the US Justice Department with espionage in three different cases. We dive into the implications of each one and what it means for the ongoing turbulence between the two countries.

To assist us in understanding the sheer insanity of the times we are now living in, we discuss the classic film The Manchurian Candidate (1962), staring Frank Sinatra, Lawrence Harvey, Janet Leigh, and the Academy Award-nominated Angela Lansbury. If you can get past both the casual and the overt racism, you'll find a taut political thriller that blends paranoid, dread, and comedy in a way wholly unique in American cinema at the time. 

The British Prime Minister Liz Truss decided to resign on the very day we recorded a podcast about her inauspicious start at the job. Hurray for us, we actually have breaking news! From a brief overview of how the British government works to a in depth look at Ms. Truss’ past and present, we dive into the completely mundane and ordinary actions she took that made her a pariah in her party and nation. For those who are bewildered when politicians suffer the consequences of their actions, this episode is for you!

We pair her downfall with perhaps the seminal aughts film about British government, In The Loop. From the brilliant, vulgar mind that brought you Veep and Death of Stalin, Armando Iannucci directs an ensemble cast of comedic heavyweights to put on full display the dysfunction of government.

You every listen to podcasts? You ever listen to podcasts... on weeeeeed? This week, we look into the federal pardons from the Biden administration for those convicted of marijuana possession on the federal level. On one hand, it's great news for those it helps, while on the other, could we be doing more? And is the current state of public opinion on marijuana usage anyway.

Of course we had to pair that with the hallmark of stoner cinema, Half Baked. The film that launched Dave Chappelle to Comedy Central stardom, we talk about this very specific strain of late nineties comedy that was very bad and very funny all at once. 

As you might have heard, the planet is getting hotter! While this means that we're all probably doomed, it also means we have to ability to uncover a lot of history that had been lost in frozen glaciers. Not exactly a fair tradeoff, but as our son says, "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit!" So here we are instead talking about Viking artifacts that have been recently discovered in the melted ice. That's better, right?

We pair this interesting and exceptionally depressing news story with the 2022 film The Northman, directed by Robert Eggars and staring Alexander Skarsgard, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hawke, and dirt! It's a more realistic look at Norse culture and technology, as well as how they enjoyed stabbing everyone! Enemy? Stab them! Friend? Stab them! Already dead person? Stab them again!

The United States government just asked us to save the world. Or at least to podcast! This week, NASA successfully completed their DART mission, which tested the ability of the agency to launch a spacecraft that could knock a threatening asteroid off its course, thereby saving the Earth from imminent doom. So if you read all that and didn't think we'd talk about Michael Bay's Armageddon, I'd have to ask what planet you've been living on.

That's right, this week we dive into the Michael Bay/Jerry Bruckheimer film Armageddon, starring Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Billy Bob Thorton, Liv Tyler, and really every character actor from the 90's. Oh yeah, and also a space rock the size of Texas. We'll learn how ridiculous the science of the movie was, what Bay thought of NASA's interior design, and how much the production paid to replace Ben Affleck's teeth. Buckle up, because United States astronauts train for years. You have twelve days.

Hey! You like podcasts, right? Have you heard of a little podcast called Serial??? Yeah you have, and today we are getting into the conversation about the release of the protagonist of that very popular podcast, Adnan Syed. After over 20 years in prison, he was released after the prosecution determined they could no longer stand by the evidence of their original case.

To understand what this means, we take a look at both the history of the case, the multiple documentary projects that reported on it, and the 2018 Barry Jenkins film If Beale Street Could Talk. Based on the novel of the same name by James Baldwin, the film examines the improper incarceration of a young black man named Fonny and the efforts of his pregnant girlfriend Tish, along with her family, to get him free. We look into Baldwin's history as an author and orator, his influence on Jenkins as a writer and director, and why the same thing seems to happy over and over and over again in this broken country

But hey, all the millions of you who liked Serial, definitely listen to our podcast too!