Cinemanimals

Take it to the bank! We dug deep into the pit of the SINERFAMICALS archive for this gem, recorded over a year ago and nearly lost: an hour of absolutely scalding takes and forceful zingers about the saddest animal movie ever made: Robert Bresson’s 1966 bleak as hell AU HASARD BALTHAZAR about a donkey named Balthazar who is repeatedly tortured. This movie is very artful and confusing. We didn’t understand it, and we didn’t like how it made us feel.

This week we honor America’s Real Team the Cleveland Browns, historic defeaters of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and the NFL franchise most associated with classic animal-based cinema. We’re talking, of course, about D.T. IN ‘DAWG TERRITORY’, a 1988 film featuring Lil’ John Rinaldi as a dog from outer space marooned in the Brown’s locker room, and several ACTUAL Cleveland Browns, such as Bob Golic. Anyway, D.T. and his new Browns friends take on some evil alien cats who, like the Steelers, hate America and are in turn hated and have lasers. D.T. IN ‘DAWG TERRITORY’ is strangely punctuated and you should watch it? It’s brief and free on YouTube. FREE GOOFBALLS: cinemanimals@gmail.com

Welcome to SEASON FOUR of Cinemanimals, a podcast about relationship problems. This week we watched SKY DOG, which made us sad and angry. It’s mostly Allen’s fault. Most of the episode is about Allen, who recommended SKY DOG to us. Allen is a great guy but he messed up. SKY DOG theorizes a world where you might be in the CIA and not know it, which, actually that sounds great. But don’t watch it! What you should watch instead is Mikal watching movies, a new service we are offering. Anyway, this movie felt like a personal affront to us because there is hardly any dog in it. Don’t you dare email us: cinemanimals@gmail.com

WE ARE BACK!  Season 3 of cinemanimals. This week we watched THE GREAT RUPERT, the 1950 squirrel movie starring Jimmy Durante as a vaudevillle performer who moves his family into a basement apartment, discovering later that the apartment has a hole that rains $16,000 in cash every Friday afternoon. We get to the bottom of everything about 50s culture: milkshakes, horniness, and cans of beans tied to strings, swinging from the rafters, smashing your dingle.  Simon reveals an extracurricucritters film he saw which he claims is mainstream, Mikal opens up his extracurricucritters vault, we don’t remember much about THE GREAT RUPERT, actually we don’t remember anything. Don’t email us.

There are many movies that feature guard dogs, but there can be only one GUARD DOG, an insane 2015 movie about Chance, a boy whose mom dies of cancer, and Abba, a talking dog played by a grown man in a dog suit and voiced by the director. Abba and Chance have a series of adventures that devolve into a Christian allegory, and (spoiler train) at the end a bunch of kids go through a slide, mass hallucinate the same talking dog, and appear to start a church. This movie has everything: an abusive dad obsessed with disposable cups, important lessons about racism, and much more! If you or a friend need help, email us: cinemanimals@gmail.com

This week we put our therapists on retainer and tuned in to NIGHT OF THE LEPUS, the most frightful film in the entire history of American cinema, in which a colony of rabbits meets the hubris of Texas Science and mutates into a colony of larger, bloodthirsty rabbits. Before certifying NIGHT OF THE LEPUS with the first-ever official Cinemanimals 1000% AA+ rating, Simon launches an exciting, new, and very long segment where he reads the names of animal movies from the upcoming Cannes Film Market. Mikal does his Jay Leno impersonation, Mike tells a story about black market iguanas, and we offer a legally binding taxonomy of which animals are scary. THE NIGHT OF THE LEPUS: we watched it. Dare you to email us: cinemanimals@gmail.com

America asked, and as usual, we over-delivered: this week we watched QUIGLEY, a 2003 film in which Gary Busey slips on dog poop and later . . . becomes a dog. Can the dog talk? Why does Gary Busey fall in a bush? What is Oz Perkins doing here? What are some things women have invented? Is heaven crowded? Like all great narrative art, we feel there is a lot to explore here, and also like all great narrative art, we don’t understand it and we barely care about it. QUIGLEY is bad. Don’t watch it, and don’t listen to this episode. Instead, send us an email: Cinemanimals@gmail.com

This is a throw-back, one of our very early episodes, originally recorded around Halloween 2019.  We review this 1977 “classic” which at the time was the first animal-themed horror movie for the podcast.  But we’ve grown up and if you are familiar with our podcast, you might notice how the show has evolved (devolved?).  But there are a lot of new fresh drops in this episode.  I hope you know what drops are.  Maybe you call them stingers.  In any event, they were all made recently and we are excited about them.  But who cares about the drops?  I know that you, the faithful listener, are here for the animals.  Do we deliver?  Well if you consider Leslie Nielsen shirtless in the rain to be an animal, then we definitely talk about animals in this episode.  There is lots of film history to explore here, and Simon does not hold back.  We start to heat up about half-way through as we realize how much we dislike yet love this terrible awesome movie.  We discuss what is potentially problematic in the film, and Simon & Mike educate about women’s rights.  This episode might be for the hardcore cinemanimal fans.  Simon accuses us of being “low energy” towards the end.  We are not “low energy”.  Or maybe we are.  You decide.  The most striking thing about this episode is I’m not sure if we hate this movie or love it.  Or maybe we just hate ourselves?  Maybe we hate you?  It’s really hard to be sure of anything after watching this movie.  As always, we have an email address: cinemanimals@gmail.com

We watched A SUMMER TO REMEMBER…, a 1985 film about an ASL-literate orangutan who escapes captivity only to stumble into an even bleaker reality: the prison of the American family. Is blasting the Sesame Street theme song into a cornfield considered an example of PSYOPS? Is it good or bad for a stepdad to say, “I’m your only dad now?” Did we really watch this movie? We can’t remember. But Mikal saves the day with an iconic new segment called THE SAD SIX. Emailing us is always a possibility: cinemanimals@gmail.com

After launching an exciting new social media celebrity challenge, that may or may not involve marijuana and slicing off fingers, and may or may not include the singer of Smashmouth eating too many eggs, the #22 top-ranked animal movie podcast, CINEMARMIANLS, risks it all by trying something new. This week, Simon watched DEADLY EYES, a rare 1982 horror film about rats, and Mikal watched MOM, CAN I KEEP HER?, an even more rare 1998 family film about a boy who finds a gorilla in his garage. Mike watched neither, so Simon and Mikal compete for the honor of mailing him their DVD. Tune in to find out once and for all what makes a gorilla a gorilla, what the acronym DVD stands for, who wins the TERRY FUNK/ SCATMAN CROTHERS name face-off, the reveal of the first (and perhaps only) example of an animal acting as another animal in a film, and which dogs are KNOWN ASSHOLES. Stay to the bitter end, when Mike makes a shocking confession that changes everything. Booking info and in person sessions: cinemanimals@gmail.com

We talk about Robo-Dog months before having watched it.  Which I’m sure we all forgot about.  We talk a lot about Paul Reubens, mostly in a positive way.  We dissect this film Dunston Checks In and while we have some positive remarks about the technical filmmaking, it remains a mystery if anyone actually liked the movie.  We find out what orangutans find sexy about one another and what we find disgusting about them.  We debate if this is the last theatrical film starring a movie about a monkey. And we go deep in understanding the saying “spare the rod, spoil the child”. No one has checked our email in a long time: cinemanimals@gmail.com

* * This week’s episode is un-edited, uploaded “as is” * * This week we watched ROBO-DOG, a 2015 film about a dog who suffers an excruciating death and is revivified by an Inventor Dad, who installs a vacuum in Robo-dog’s butt. We get deep on what exactly a “real” “life” “live-action” “dog” is and whether a dog portraying a robot dog counts as one, and whether this episode is even valid for our podcast, and ultimately whether the whole Cinemanimals universe is valid or not. Someone says something about Howie Mandel, Mikal sets the record straight about toilet paper and reads the URL for an exclusive website full of animal facts and and then reads the titles of a lot of movies other than the one we are talking about, Mike delivers a mostly-accurate sixty second lecture on the history of grammar and shares a hard truth about the word spatula, and Simon shares his correct opinion that it’s funny when a character’s clothes are blasted off.

**UPDATE: episode has been fixed!  It is now one hour and forty-five minutes instead of abruptly stopping at one hour.  Hopefully quality is a little better as well.  Thanks for understanding! The lost episode that at least one fan specifically asked for.  And here at Cinemanimals, the fans get what they ask for.  This episode clocks in at one hour and forty five minutes.  That’s longer than the movie by a lot.  But it’s a quick hour and forty-five minutes because we get to listen to Simon slowly lose his mind as he re-tells THE ENTIRE movie shot by shot, more or less.   Without a doubt, this movie is a lost classic.  We talk about too much to mention, plus I did not listen back to the whole thing.  NO TIME, I’m busy!!  But I recall we develop a movie called Chimpanzee Nanny, or Chimpananny.  Copyright.  What else can I say?  Um, don’t worry, the ape in the movie never actually wears a doctor’s lab coat as seen on the DVD cover.  Let us know what we talked about.  There is too much to love about this trainwreck of a film. We might check our email: cinemanimals@gmail.com

Sorry for the extended absence from posting. We have no excuse and we know we have let the fans down.  We know there are people out there whose lives were negatively impacted by this.  But fear not, because WE ARE BACK.  In today’s nightmare, we examine the “based on a true story” movie that stars the animal from the “true story”.  Much of these truth is debated by us.  We discuss whether or not Harry Connick Jr. is CGI or not, plus his inability to no ooze charisma. We talk about  Morgan Freeman’s first on screen kiss. Mikal attempts to describe the plot of the movie, but gets lost in an over-attention to detail. The spoiler train arrives as usual.  Corporate greed and capitalism are briefly discussed, some pretty good zingers are thrown, and then we get real about dolphins and their tendency to rape humans as well as their own kind.  Then we learn too much about science experiments in the 1970s involving dolphins, LSD, and inter-species sensuality.  Simon and Mike liked the movie, but also did not understand that the title is a pun.  Thanks for welcoming us back after our holiday.  The animal movies keep coming and we keep watching them. We haven’t checked our email in over a month: cinemanimals@gmail.com

Notice the various posters for this movie.  The dog definitely never rides in a flying sleigh.  Notice the different dogs featured on the covers.  Notice the various Dean Cains.  Notice the Dustin Diamond.  Yes, we wish everyone a happy holiday in the worst way possible.  By recommending terrible movies featuring animals. In this episode, we are all feeling very depressed and angry because we all watched different garbage movies about the holidays.  The movies all sort of involved dogs.  Only in retrospect did we realize we should’ve watched The Christmas Bunny because there are not  too many bunny movies.  We discuss Deep Fake Technology Dogs and moist paint.  We examine the confounding Joel Paul Reisig “movie” A Dog For Christmas, which we thought starred two Dean Cains, but it doesn’t.  Only one Dean Cain.  We learn some history about Dean Cain.  The movie also stars Screech from Saved by the Bell and that guy from Home Improvement.  Does the movie feature a dog?  Maybe.  Listen to find out.  Then we half-watched a few other “movies” and try to explain them.  We get back to one of our most important questions: does the dog push something off of a shelf?  The upsetting film A Golden Winter features a character named Tinkle and deals with abandonment and the foreclosure of a house.  Husbands lie to their wives so they can take naps.  Sorry if this ruins your holidays. We accept e-mails: cinemanimals@gmail.com

From the dungeon of unpublished Cinemanimals episodes, we unearth a movie that you might not believe actually exists, but sadly, it does.  Or maybe magically it does.  And when the movie about the talking hedgehog also stares Tara Reid and Dean Cain, well it would be stupid NOT to watch this movie.  By the way, the hedgehog never rides on a horse as the DVD cover hints.  Director Joel Paul Reisig has his own production company called “Be Your Own Hollywood.”  Feeling super-inspired yet?  Not much competition in the hedgehog movie genre.  This is one of those episodes where we are so confounded by what was on screen, the line between our distaste and pleasure becomes blurry.  There a million ways to lose your mind while watching this movie.  And we talk about all of them.  This episode was originally recorded in spring 2019.  It is also another “fan” edited episode, completed by Harrison Pasley, many thanks to him or else we would have nothing to post.  Or maybe blame him.  Get ready to hear us avoid talking about this film for as long as we can.  Then we can’t stop. Send us jokes: cinemanimals@gmail.com

Ah, back in the simple times of the 1980s, when placing random characters in Africa was funny.  Back when Africa was funny enough on its own.  Throw in Dom DeLuise (father of 21 Jump Street star Peter DeLuise) and a naughty, talking monkey, played not by a real monkey but rather by a little person in a monkey suit, and well, frankly speaking, this is movie magic.  As usual, we ponder who was this movie made for?  We ask if staring at a wall for the same amount of time as the movie length would be time better spent?  This episode is our first one edited by a guest editor and listener.  I’d say this person did well!  AFRICA! We write back: cinemanimals@gmail.com

Mooch Goes To Hollywood really destroyed us.  This is not an “alone movie” as Mike says in this episode.  So many things about this “movie” make no sense.  And the parts that do make sense are deeply problematic and misogynist.  But hey it was the early 70s right?!?  Compares to Linda Lovelace’s sad life.  Shout out to Benji and Thurston Howl III.  Not a single “joke” in this movie is funny.  The color of the film is legitimately vomit-inducing.  And Zsa Zsa Gabor gives lots of questionable advice to Mooch.  Oh, poor sad Mooch. This is a rarely seen movie for a good reason.  We had high hopes for it.  Then we felt like we got sucker punched in the stomach.  Fun. Tell us what movies make you sick: cinemanimals@gmail.com

Do you the difference between a mule and donkey?  Neither do we, but we almost figure it out on this episode.  Do you know what a “hinny” is?  You will if you listen to this special bonus episode.  Why is it special and bonus?  I’ll tell you why.  Because we recorded it back on 4/20.  Four twenty dude!  This was technically our third episode, but we hadn’t actually started posting yet.  We were perfecting our craft.  We still are.  Forever.  Anyway… this movie called Gus from 1976 does not feature a donkey (Don Key), but it does feature Don Knots.  And it is about a football playing mule (American football).  The mule is from Yugoslavia.  And when it kicks, wow the sound effect is really something else!  This is a Disney movie, from a time period where Disney was making a lot of movies like this.  It’s got some really special moments and we believe the first movie to use the classic animal-sports movie line “well, there’s no rule in the rule book that says you can’t…”  The mule even gets drunk!  You’ll feel drunk just by watching the movie or listening to this podcast. We never write back: cinemanimals@gmail.com

A TALKING PONY?!? is actually about a talking horse, not a pony, but neither the fact that it talks nor its status as a horse has any bearing whatsoever on the plot. And it’s not the horse seen on the cover of the DVD.  Like many of the films we watch, this one exudes a palpable contempt for its audience, but unlike the others, A TALKING PONY?!? ramps up the contempt quotient by intermittently not even being a film, which means it’s the first film we considered rejecting not because it doesn’t have enough animal in it, but because it might not be a movie in the first place.  At the beginning of the show we do a self-crit about what qualifies a movie as an animal movie, Mikal updates us about the animal trainer he’s been emailing, and at the end, Simon blows the whole genre wide open with a meteoric hot take about the form.  As always, we remind you not to watch this movie. If you do e-mail us, expect to get a reply: cinemanimals@gmail.com

I had to break this episode up into two parts.  As a gift to the listeners.  But definitely listen to this because Mike’s description of the plot of this movie is the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time.  This movie might change the whole way you think about movies.  The movie actually barely features a cop or a dog.  But that doesn’t matter.  This movie is mostly about  a hat.  Listen to us slowly lose our minds while also dropping potent film knowledge. E-mail us photos of your dog: cinemanimals@gmail.com

Top Dog is a movie.  So is Cop Dog.  But they are very different movies.  However both feature dogs and cops.  Kind of.  Why we were crazy enough to think reviewing two animals films in one episode was a good idea is lost on me now.  However, as usual, we are able to draw deep truths, interesting parallels, and lots of laughs from both movies.  But in all honesty, this is torture.  Still Top Dog does feature Nazis and Racial Unity Conferences and begs the question – who was this movie made for?  Plus lots of fun facts about Chuck Norris.  And favorite segments such as Is The Male Lead Seen Wearing His Underwear and Is The Animal Still Alive? Please do not e-mail us: cinemanimals@gmail.com

Cops month continue!!!  Here we find “the Belush” wearing a too large suit trying to be funny.  Inevitably, the comparisons to Turner & Hooch begin.  But K-9 is its own movie with its own charm.  The more one talks about K-9, the more one falls in love with it.  Other things in this episode: we discuss how to pronounce the name of our podcast, Simon introduces a new segment that is hard to pronounce, we get lost talking about Theodore Rex, Whoopi Goldberg, and Kim Basinger, why dinosaurs are not in the bible, the Lincoln/Kennedy similarities, Mikal imitates a German person, the self-help book that “the Belush” wrote, how to pronounce “ogle” in Mike’s English Minute, the progressive nature of the scene in K-9 where “the Belush” gets his dog laid by a dog prostitute.  We get so deep into K-9, dissecting the beauty of this wonderful film that we hate.  Overall, we recognize more and more patterns that emerge in most animal movies and learn to hate ourselves even more. Talk us off the roof: cinemanimals@gmail.com

Poochinski oozes and pulsates with a bizarre energy that is both sickening and confounding.  It takes the guys nearly 30 minutes to even get up the courage to talk about the darn failed TV pilot.  Mikal is calling from a webinar inside his car, Simon explains why his dog has started taking Xanax, and Mike is perplexed by earthquakes and the triangle of life. Poochinski crosses many lines, but also never quite makes a full statement. Don’t hesitate to write: cinemanimals@gmail.com

This week we begin our study of dog cop buddy movies, starting with everyone’s favorite or least favorite Turner & Hooch.  A young Tom Hanks yells at the dog a lot and is in his underwear a lot.  But he remains curiously charismatic.  The spoiler train arrives early.  We also discuss Henry Winkler, how to pronounce the name of the breed of dog featured in this film, "scene stealers", real emotions, dog tricks, and how Simon’s opinions have sadly or perhaps predictably become very basic. Enumerate your complaints: cinemanimals@gmail.com

Patriotism!  POC!  Racism!  Race bikes!  War!  Bootleg video games!  Bombs!  Betrayal!  A dog!  A movie!  Max has it all and yet delivers nothing.  Or does it?  Nobody knows the answer, but at least we are brave enough to try to find out.

In this episode, we memorialize the internet’s beloved cat with a bad mood as she “stars” in her very own Lifetime movie.  We collectively vomit and cry. Dazzle us with your complaints: cinemanimals@gmail.com

In episode 2, the guys dissect A Dog’s Journey, sequel to A Dog’s Purpose.  (A Dog’s J vs. A Dog’s P) Topics include dog deaths, dog acting, removal of glasses to make an ugly character hot, Josh Gad naked and playing a dog, vaping marijuana, empty movie theaters, spilling popcorn, commemorative cups, theories on the physical attributes of “bad guys”, the rainbow bridge, and much much more! Fire us your complaints: cinemanimals@gmail.com

Welcome to Cinemanimals, named one of the 30 best podcasts about movies starring animals. In this premiere episode, we discuss the grueling, inexplicable, and sublime film titled A Talking Cat!?!  Did you know that the "!?!" at the end of the title is part of the title and the "!?!" symbol actually has a name.  Listen to the episode to learn more and also to learn less.  Also the cat featured on the movie poster is not the cat in the movie.   Enumerate your complaints: cinemanimals@gmail.com