Monday, November 7, 2016
The Latest Episode of RRR is on GGPodcasting.com!
Gordon is out of town so we're going back in time to August 1st, 2015 when we watched Dragon Guardians during one of our "practice episodes." Listen to our roots at GG Podcasting.
Monday, October 31, 2016
Today's Episode is on GG Podcasting!
Looking for the latest episode of Random Reviews and other Ramblings? It's on our new website: GG Podcasting. If you listen to the podcast through your browser, this is where you're going to find all future episodes. If you're subscribed through a podcast subscription service such as iTunes or Google Play, there's nothing you need to do; The podcast will continue downloading automatically for you!* Here's the RSS feed.
*If the podcast no longer downloads automatically for you, please leave a comment and let us know!
Monday, October 24, 2016
We have a new website!
Dear Random Reviews and other Ramblings subscriber,
We have a new website! It will be ready for your viewing and listening pleasure in early November. What does that mean for this blog? It will no longer receive updates, the audio links will become obsolete, and its sole purpose will be to capture traffic and redirect it to the new hub containing our podcasts. If you subscribe to RRR through a service such as iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, etc., AND you have a setting set to download all episodes you haven't listened to, you're going to be in for a surprise unless you act soon. All of the audio files for the podcast are moving to the new domain and the RSS feed will be pointed at the new files. Your podcast-listening software will think there are over 50 new episodes to listen to and download them all and ruin your day! Update your settings now and save your precious data limitations!
Looking forward to seeing you on the new website,
Geoff
Episode 54: Miele
A woman who helps terminally ill people end their suffering faces a moral dilemma when a physically healthy man seeks assistance in ending his life.
In Episode -2: How to Die in Oregon, Gordon and Geoff watched a documentary about legalized assisted suicide in the state of Oregon. 56 episodes later, we have returned to the subject in the form of a foreign film from Italy. Miele, also known as Honey, also known as Irene, is a drug dealer of death. Her clients are terminally ill patients who are unfortunately unable to legally commit suicide so they use our protagonist's elaborate drug trafficking of canine barbiturates. Irene cares deeply about her work and it shows when she is duped into selling the drugs to a perfectly healthy individual. The plot focuses on this conflict but also takes a lot of dead-end ventures that try to make Irene's character more complex. Despite all the red herrings and a plot that goes nowhere, we actually walked away from this movie fairly content. It was well-paced, the acting was good, and the subject was interesting. Maybe it's the mountain of bad movies we trudge through that has made this bad movie appear mediocre so keep that in mind. We don't recommend it but we didn't hate it either is what I'm trying to say. After the news, Gordon brings in Shin Godzilla and then I lose our foreign movie bet as we end up rolling Chic! for next week, our fourth foreign film in a row!
| Gordon: | ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ |
| Geoff: | ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ |
This episode may contain spoilers for the following:
Monday, October 17, 2016
Episode 53: Plot for Peace
Follow the true story of Jean-Yves Ollivier, an Algerian-born French businessman whose political efforts helped end apartheid in South Africa.
This is a bizarre documentary about a French philanthropist who claims to actually be the one responsible for ending apartheid in South Africa by being the catalyst resulting in Nelson Mandela's freedom. We already learned about Nelson Mandela in Episode 19: "The 16th Man," an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary about the 1995 Rugby World Cup. Being an excellent ESPN doc, the focus was on Mandela's vision and how sports played a huge role in accomplishing that. Unlike that movie, this documentary does a great job showing how bad things were in South Africa. It's graphic, violent, and doesn't try to convince you that rooting for the national rugby team is what it's going to take to save the country. Instead, they try to convince you that a solitaire-obsessed obese man, wearing suspenders with naked men on them, who sits in an armchair made from the skins of at least thee endangered species is batman. It's hard to take the guy seriously given the way he was presented and the message came off as braggadocious (we have the best words, folks) and trying to undermine Mandela's achievements. Everyone interviewed in the film speaks English except for our hero, Mr. Ollivier. That would be fine but in addition to showing clips of interviews with him, they also had him narrate the movie. Like I already stated, it was really bizarre, and just added more evidence to our theory that the reason this movie exists is because Ollivier funded the entire thing, and wanted to as well-remembered as Nelson Mandela. After the review, Gordon brings in his review of Snowden and then talks about Gears of War 4. Next week, we're watching Miele, which is another foreign movie! That's three in a row! When did we start trudging through the bowels of Euroflix?
| Gordon: | ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ |
| Geoff: | ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ |
This episode may contain spoilers for the following:
Monday, October 10, 2016
Episode 52: Counter Investigation
When a man convicted of killing his daughter tirelessly pleads his innocence, an overworked police captain reconsiders the case.
Whether you see the plot twists coming or not, this is a very enjoyable read. Yup, a read because if you're listening to this show, chances are you don't speak French. This is a movie about how a child-rapist-murderer-guy commits this evil crime in order to score one of the nicest looking studio apartments I have ever seen. If you go to prison in France, apparently you get your own room with television, books, in-room meals... The works! I bet if you were a wanted French criminal, you could probably work out a deal where you turn yourself in and score an internet connection so that you could listen to Random Reviews and other Ramblings and jerk off (at the same time) every day for the duration of your prison sentence. Anyway, beyond being stunned by the luxurious punishment France enforces, this is actually a pretty decent movie. There are two good twists that I enjoyed and Gordon claims to also have enjoyed even though he saw them coming from his moon yacht, which is powered by Reddit karma. After the news, I bring in two short reviews of Jupiter Ascending and The Brothers Bloom. Next week, we're watching Plot for Peace.
| Gordon: | ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ |
| Geoff: | ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ |
This episode may contain spoilers for the following:
Monday, October 3, 2016
Episode 51: The Mend
Returning from a vacation, a depressed New Yorker finds his brother living in his apartment uninvited, leading to some strange entanglements.
Last week, we didn't think the movies could get any worse than the two we had to watch in our 50th episode celebration. This week, it's my displeasure to bring you our second double-zero rated movie. The Mend is about a guy living in a shitty NYC apartment with his leech of a girlfriend. Maybe vampires and other things that suck blood are his fetish or something because he decides to slide a ring onto one of her tentacles while on a vacation to Quebec. Not wanting to let a vacant apartment go to waste, his homeless brother seizes the opportunity to move in with his homeless fuck-buddy and her kid. Leech boy ends up returning home leech-less and they decide to do drugs for a week. The leech comes home, the homeless people are still homeless and everything is still shitty when the credits roll. What in fuck? Next week, we are watching Counter Investigation.
| Gordon: | ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ |
| Geoff: | ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ |
This episode may contain spoilers for the following:
Monday, September 26, 2016
Episode 50: Double Feature: Where Children Play and If You Don't, I Will
Called home to Los Angeles by her mother's death, a woman faces the pain of her dysfunctional childhood and an abusive father now in need of her care.
Facing a marriage that has become stale, a woman leaves her husband during a hike and chooses to make a new life in the woods while he returns home.
Happy 50th episode! For the past year, Gordon and Geoff have been trudging through the bowels of Netflix searching for movies you can enjoy with your subscription that you may have missed by using one of the most inefficient search mechanisms available to us: Random. In this special episode, we change up the order of the show my rambling first and then selecting two movies to review with a twist on the rules. We each chose our least favorite movies to watch from the past 49 episodes and then randomly chose a movie that was suggested as a similar title to our selctions. Gordon's most hated movie was Four of Hearts which led us to a review of Where Children Play; The story of a gold digger. My most hated was Life of Riley, and that awful movie led us to If You Don't, I will - A movie illustrating how sometimes divorce is a pretty good option. Next week, we will return to the usual format with The Mend.
| Where Children Play | |
|---|---|
| Gordon: | ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ |
| Geoff: | ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ |
| If You Don't, I Will | |
|---|---|
| Gordon: | ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ |
| Geoff: | ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ |
This episode may contain spoilers for the following:
Monday, September 19, 2016
Episode 49: Uncle John
When a rough customer in a small Wisconsin town disappears, some begin to suspect an unfailingly friendly local farmer.
Uncle John is your typical retired blue collar guy. He gets coffees with his buddies every morning at the diner. He has a small carpentry business he keeps up with for fun and a little money on the side. And he murders people. Uncle John is an uncle in this movie because this is also a story about his nephew Virgin. Kissless Virgin. Kissless likes his new boss, Ms. Hot Stuff, and he throws as much spaghetti at her as possible until she falls for him. You probably want to know more about his murdering uncle though, don't you? Yeah, me too. Also we talk about Max Payne, and Hell or High Water. Next week, we're not revealing what we are watching until the episode is released because it's our 50th episode and we're doing something special.
| Gordon: | ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ |
| Geoff: | ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ |
This episode may contain spoilers for the following:
Monday, September 12, 2016
Episode 48: An Affair to Remember
Although each is already engaged to another, Nickie Ferrante (Cary Grant) and Terry McKay (Deborah Kerr) meet on an ocean liner and fall in love.
This classic movie from 1957 still holds up. Almost. The love story moves along at a slow-but-tolerable pace right up until what you think is the climax of the plot and then turns into a bizarre story about teaching special children how to sing. I bet you would like this movie so go give it a good streaming until everything is about to end well and then turn it off. Tell yourself in your head "And they lived happily ever after." There; we just saved you forty minutes and found you something good to watch. Last week, Geoff was on vacation in Texas so he brings in two Texan movies - No Country for Old Men, and Miracles from Heaven. Gordon talks about some of the Steam Sale games he bought but never played until now and reviews War Dogs. Next week, we're watching Uncle John.
| Gordon: | ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ |
| Geoff: | ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ |
This episode may contain spoilers for the following:
Monday, September 5, 2016
Deleted Scenes: Episode -2: How to Die in Oregon
This award winning documentary takes you into the lives of terminally ill people as they consider availing themselves of physician-assisted suicide.
Geoff is on vacation this week so we're once again revisiting the past and listening to another practice episode from August 1st, 2015. Gordon and Geoff watch an extremely depressing documentary on physician-assisted suicide. We watched people die. Welcome to SadCast. Also, we talk about the Berenst#in Bears Problem.
| Gordon: | ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ |
| Geoff: | ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ |
Monday, August 29, 2016
Random Requests 2: Singham with Paul
A police inspector kills himself after a powerful gangster frames him for corruption - but soon the thug faces the full force of cop Bajirao Singham.
Our second guest, Paul, brings in an awesome Bollywood movie. Everything in this film is over the top. Singham is a god among men who fights corruption by being the most corrupt police officer in India. Smart. I'm not going to write anything else. Go watch this movie.
| Gordon: | ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ |
| Geoff: | ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ |
| Paul: | ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ |
This episode may contain spoilers for the following:
Monday, August 22, 2016
Episode 47: The Awakening
Twists abound in this dark thriller as a young man consults an ambitious journalist in his quest to learn the truth behind his prophetic dreams.
The Awakening is a Nigerian movie that is arguably worse than my ninth grade video project for science class. Apparently Nigerian movies are classified as Nollywood productions like how Indian movies are called Bollywood. This would suggest that some inspiration was taken from the movies of Hollywood but I don't think anyone involved with this movie has ever watched American cinema. Everything was bad. Acting, sound, editing, scenery, costumes, and story were managed by the same children who make Nike shoes at the factory every morning. We could almost chalk this one up as one of those so-bad-its-good movies but the entire 2 hours of dialogue is drowned out by a pesky farmer driving his tractor around in the background of every scene. After the news, Gordon brings in his review of Sausage Party and I continue my streak of watching last year's movies with Straight Outta Compton. Next week, we're watching An Affair to Remember.
| Gordon: | ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ |
| Geoff: | ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ |
This episode may contain spoilers for the following:
Monday, August 15, 2016
Episode 46: Commitment
After taking on a spying mission to free his sister from a labor camp, a 19-year-old North Korean becomes a target of his own government.
This is the story detailing why North Korea is so far behind the rest of the world. All of their resources are tied up in smuggling their agents into South Korea to kill agents they no longer need. Once those agents complete their mission, they too are no longer needed. It's a never-ending cycle that has the male equivalent of Wendy Wu torn between completing his mission or making his school a "No Bully Zone." Tough choices. The movie is chock full of action for the first part of the film and then throws in this weird generic B-plot about trading hostages for diamonds and yada yada yada Gordon and I talk about what it takes to be a good waiter/waitress. After the news, we talk about Suicide Squad. Next week, we're watching The Awakening which doesn't seem to have an IMDB page associated with it.
| Gordon: | ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ |
| Geoff: | ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ |
This episode may contain spoilers for the following:
Monday, August 8, 2016
Episode 45: Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me
This documentary explores the history of Memphis rock band Big Star, which experienced commercial failure but influenced major artists such as REM.
We all have dreams of being the most famous podcast but even when you have the best content, the best talent, the best concept, and the best reviews, if the stars don't align just right, the majority of people are just going to continue listening to Adam Carolla. So check out our documentary, "Random Reviews and other Ramblings: Another Netflix Streaming Option" in fifty years. RRaoR:ANSO and BS:NCHM are both the story of an unsuccessful entertainment group's attempt to jump into an oversaturated genre and how they got lost in the noise. The only difference between the two flicks is that in fifty years, Gordon and Geoff will probably still be here so you won't have to interview our loose acquaintances to guess at what happened. After the news, we talk about some sequels; The new Star Trek and the new Jason Bourne. Next week, we're watching Commitment.
| Gordon: | ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ |
| Geoff: | ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ |
This episode may contain spoilers for the following:
Monday, August 1, 2016
Episode 44: Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior
A teen girl focuses on becoming homecoming queen - until she learns she has the soul of an ancient female warrior destined to battle an evil spirit.
What's more important than saving the world? If you grew up on Disney Channel, then you know that the answer is going to the homecoming dance after your boyfriend Vaughn beats rival high school The "Offensive-To-Native-Americans." Wendy Wu is a typical Californian who crashes her car into people's trucks and doesn't leave a note. Also she's the reincarnation of a famous ninja. She takes a break from her quest to get chlamydia to help her cousin defeat the Putty Patrollers from Power Rangers but accidentally falls in love with him. But like, it's like 2016, and like it's okay to date your cousin LOL. We're looking forward to seeing how they break up in Wendy Wu 2: The Search for More Polos. After the news, Gordon walks us through the new BoJack Horseman season and I talk about alternative rock costumes. Next week we're watching Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me.
| Gordon: | ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ |
| Geoff: | ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ |
This episode may contain spoilers for the following:
Monday, July 25, 2016
Episode 43: Assassination
A resistance group in Japanese-occupied Korea breaks a sniper out of prison to carry out an assassination, unaware that a traitor lurks among them.
This is easily the best movie we've watched this year so before you listen, go check out Assassination on Netflix. Actually, do listen first because even though we try to spoil the plot twists, we convolute the story even more to the point that this episode is almost spoiler free. Assassination has it all: Complex characters with ulterior motives, multiple plot twists, intense action, comedy, and engaging dialogue. Watch it twice because you won't catch it all the first time through. Then, Geoff talks about his trip to the drive-in where he saw The Secret Life of Pets and The Legend of Tarzan. And because you can't get enough movie reviews this week, we also talk about Ip Man 3 which is another great movie from Asia available on Netflix that you should watch after Assassination. You're going to read so many movies this week that you'll forget your Netflix and chill buddy is even there. Next week, we're watching Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior... Sigh.
| Gordon: | ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ |
| Geoff: | ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ |
This episode may contain spoilers for the following:
Monday, July 18, 2016
Episode 42: Blood
After committing the ultimate crime while interrogating a suspect, two police detective brothers are plagued by guilt and the fear of being caught.
It's time for another uplifting story from our favourite island nation. Blood is the story about how two drunk cops, who are also brothers, decide to beat a confession out of their suspect and then to death. Top notch police work. The day after they solved the murder, a real investigator arrests the actual criminal and then the two brothers act completely guilty for the next hour until they're practically shouting their confession at the top of their lungs, begging for justice. And even then, they don't get arrested. They just go for a walk on the beach. Have you ever heard of an anti-joke? Here's one: A horse walks into a bar. Several people get up and leave as they spotted the potential danger of having a horse in a bar. Blood is an anti-thriller. You know exactly where the train is going and you only wished that horses could talk so that the joke would be at least somewhat interesting. After the news, Geoff brings in an "old" movie, 2016 Best Motion Picture Oscar winner, Spotlight and then Gordon reviews Central Intelligence. Next week, we're watching Assassination.
| Gordon: | ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ |
| Geoff: | ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ |
This episode may contain spoilers for the following:
Monday, July 11, 2016
Episode 41: Watchers of the Sky
Paying homage to four pioneers of the global campaign to end genocide, this feature-length documentary details their efforts to protect the powerless.
Watchers of the Sky is a thorough documentary highlighting some of the players in the United Nations that are doing their best to fight against modern genocide. Keyword: "Thorough." This movie presents all of the evidence when they really could have proved their point with half of the content stuffed in to this long two hour movie. I learned a lot but this film will just leave you feeling frustrated. When it comes to the enormous amount of problems in the world, sometimes you have to accept that there is nothing anyone can do. That said, through out discussion, Gordon and I discover the solution to all of the world's problems: Sentient robot race. After the news, we talk about Swiss Army Man and The Shallows. Next week, we'll be watching Blood.
| Gordon: | ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ |
| Geoff: | ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ |
This episode may contain spoilers for the following:
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Episode 40: Dark Skies
A couple has trouble convincing friends and neighbors that an alien is entering their house each night to terrorize their children.
One of the best alien horror movies out there is Signs. Dark Skies is essentially Signs but this time the aliens have a hidden camera show and they pull elaborate pranks on the humans to see how they react. Also like Signs, we recommend you check this one out. Dark Skies is a fun movie that offers some suspenseful moments and also J. K. Simmons is an alien. We briefly discuss a new Netflix original, The Ranch, and then launch in to our fourth edition of Random Ramblings. Next week, we're watching Watchers of the Sky.
| Gordon: | ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ |
| Geoff: | ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ |
This episode may contain spoilers for the following:
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