Movie Bonfire

Well, well, well. I'm a week late publishing this. So sue me! Mark where are you!?!? Micah, where are you?!? There is a couple of The Killing comments in here by Terrie, but Will doesn't give a rat's patooty about that tv show any more. GOT is getting better than ever. Will we get to see Pete wield an axe in the next episode? One can only hope. If you listen to this podcast, please send us an email.Check out the podcast

Winter is coming... Well, not really spring is coming actually. In this DOUBLE VIDEO episode (recording much improved by the way) Terrie and Will continue our stroll thru dreary and grief stricken Seattle. Then we press a button and land in a dreamy fantasy that is the continent of Westeros. Here we discover at least three beheadings, a drunk and sex addicted dwarf, and some serious royal incest. Can the Killing hold our interest? Can GOT keep the sex, violence, and fantasy flowing? Tune in to hear what we think.Check out the podcast

The experiment continues. Movie Bonfire is back this time with a VIDEO episode! Lori and Will are in Denver, Terrie is in Chicago and Micah and Bill are in Indiana. Oh, how the powers of the internet are so grand. Too bad episode three of The Killing is a bit of a let down in comparison to episodes one and two. I think our audio streams get out of sync late in the episode and it's difficult to follow. Hey, gimme a break, this is the first try (second actually). I know of some tweaks to apply the next go round. Come on, The Killers. Let's hope you get better. Check out the podcast

MB is back! But the posting of this episode is really late because I am a slacker (Will). Movie Bonfire is excited to welcome a new movie burner, Johnny. Take note as he and will dissect this sci-fi love story. Terrie's crackily (she had a bad cold) voice chimes in every so often too. Check out the podcast

The last episode of season one...Oh my.  In our liveliest Walking Dead podcast yet, Bonfire members, Brynn, Micah, Mark, Terrie, Will and Zach pretty much rip the writing of this finale episode to shreds. Is this show done? We hope not, but some of us have already given up. Hopefully Kirkman and Darabont can get the show back to it's awesomeness that we saw in episode one. Check out the podcast

Terrie, Mark and Will are back for episode 4 of the Walking Dead. In this outing, our heroes find Meryle's hand, make nice with some gangbangers, and make it back to camp to save the day. Almost. It's been fun to follow this series so far, but with only two episodes left Movie Bonfire will soon need another series or set of films to follow. My brain-gears are turning... Check out the podcast

And now for something a little different...Movie Bonfire is back! In this episode we take a shot at the first episode of the new series on AMC, The Walking Dead. Closely based on the Comic Book series that shares its name, this series has a number of Hollywood heavyweights behind it. Written and directed by Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption), who is reaching back to his horror roots to produce a very promising first episode. Micah, Terrie and Will's hopes are flying high. Will this series continue to deliver, or will it eventually get bogged down by the collective weight of the walking dead? Check out the podcast

Movie Bonfire is back once again. I just got through "splicing" our latest podcast episode and I think the end result may have come out just a tiny bit better than this unoriginal film. There is nothing new in this Frankenstein's monster rehash and it's hard to say exactly what our monster is a mixture of? Oh wait, it's anything the filmmakers need it to be given the point in the weak plot. Terrie seemed to like this a smidgen more than I did, but we both were bored by this cruddy movie. Too bad, I like Sarah Polley. Check out the podcast

This one was fun. Terrie and Will pick apart the recent mindbender of a film, Inception. Terrie was bored while Will claims that this is the best film he has seen is his whole life. How is this possible? Spoiler alert. We talk about EVERYTHING in this puzzler. Check out the podcast

Can. You. Believe. It?!?Movie Bonfire is back in business. We've had a band member shake up, but all is good now. In honor of our resurrection, we take a look at one of the more recent zombie themed (but not undead) films from earlier this year. The Crazies is a remake of the 1973 George Romero original. Terrie and I had a lot of fun with this first "beercast", and look forward to more soon. Check out the podcast

After the success and massive critical praise earned by The Exorcist, the obvious sequel was produced four years later. The Exorcist 2: The Heretic attempts to rewrite the back story from the original, recasting Regan's possessor as the evil demon Pazuzu rather than Satan himself. With total disregard for this awful sequel, Movie Bonfire instead seeks out the original figure of Pazuzu at the Oriental Institute on the University of Chicago campus and has a conversation with the little guy (shown below).Check out the podcastThe future Zach?

The understood champion in the competition for "scariest movie of all time" is the first film we take on for our new Exorcism marathon, guaranteeing that the remaining films in this marathon will be anticlimactic. Though The Exorcist itself may be talked to death by various film scholars, movie buffs, and probably even your mom, Movie Bonfire takes a stab at it (with a crucifix, no less). In our longest episode yet, the religious themes of the movie are explored by an atheist, a Catholic, and one guy who can never make up his mind.Check out the podcast

For our final episode in the David Cronenberg marathon, we present the 1988 film Dead Ringers. Here Cronenberg adds his own spin on the true story of twin gynecologists found dead in their apartment in New York. Jeremy Irons plays both brothers and shows his acting chops (take a look at those tools in the picture to the right, he definitely shows some "chops"). By any measure this is a disturbing film, touching on standard Cronenberg themes such as flesh, sexuality, technology, and science, all with a little bit of gore thrown in for good measure. Join us as we sign off on our Cronenberg marathon and each rate our experience with the past seven movies.Check out the podcastNext Marathon?

The Fly is what happens when Cronenberg gets his hands on a decent story and hires some decent actors. He's back in his element with all the technofear and cartoonish gore. All three of us liked this one and pretty much agree that it's a classic. Goldblum is awesome and the drug metaphor takes this film to the next level artistically. Remake? What? Why? Where? Who? Crazy.Check out the podcast

David Cronenberg alters his standard filmmaking model for a Stephen King adaptation. Like most Stephen King adaptations, The Dead Zone doesn't quite jibe as a film, though Christopher Walken is dead-on as Johnny Smith. For once we all mostly agree, or maybe it's just that Zach and Will agree and Bracken is too agreeable to really start a yelling match. Two more Cronenberg films left in this series.Check out the podcast

In this episode, we started to talk about James Cameron's blockbuster Avatar (we're always there with your up-to-the-minute topics) but got sidetracked into a lengthy, and ultimately much more interesting, discussion on the pros and cons of going to a theatre to see a movie or watching it at home. Is the movie theatre dying? (doubtful) Is Avatar one big gimmick? (blasphemy) Are there any movies that Will Carter actually likes?! (yes, one) Listen to this episode to hear two movie nerds yell at each other and a movie nerd moderator attempt to find middle ground.Check out the podcast

In the year that one of the Movie Bonfire podcasters was born, David Cronenberg made this twisted indictment of television and media. As a sleazy cable channel executive James Woods is always looking for the next "hot" thing to broadcast to his viewers. When he stumbles upon a bootleg version of a torture show (what many of today's viewers might dub "torture porn") he thinks he might be on to something. Videodrome is a prediction of a future in which reality and television intertwine so that no one knows what's real and what's fabricted any more. In the course of the podcast, we made sure to argue about such important topics as which film critics to trust, Beta vs. VHS, and what the true definition of "art" is.Check out the podcast

Perhaps his most well-known cult classic, Scanners is when Cronenberg started really getting some attention for his films. Michael Ironside makes the film as Darryl Revok, a powerful scanner bent on world domination. As usual, we've got plenty to argue about during our conversation of this science fiction "classic." Though Scanners, spawned several sequels and there is currently talk of a 2011 remake, Movie Bonfire is sticking to the original material here. See below for a picture of our coworker that reminds us of Dr. Paul Ruth.Check out the podcastpic of Dr. Paul Ruth as Richard Hoffer as Uncle GoboThe best minute of the film (Ironside orgasm)

In response to his own divorce, Cronenberg made this disturbing horror film about a man who tries to protect his daughter from a psychologically disturbed mother who can send monster children formed through her own rage out to do her violent bidding... pretty much how Cronenberg sees divorce. It was a mixed bag here at Movie Bonfire. One of us loved it, one of us thought it was okay, and one of us couldn't make it through the entire film because he hated it so much.Check out the podcast

In David Cronenberg's first feature film, Shivers, a scientist develops an aphrodisiac/STD hybrid that infects the residents of an elite Canadian high-rise. This film sets the tone for much of Cronenberg's future work and highlights his use of extensive and disturbing gore effects. Though none of the Movie Bonfire contributors found this to be a particularly "good" film, it definitely sparked plenty of debate. Shivers may be over three decades old, but it still has enough edgy moments to give you... shivers!Check out the podcast

Bringing the (seemingly) longest bonfire marathon ever to its final resting place took longer than expected, but with the horror/comedy Fido - about a boy and his zombie - the Movie Bonfire trilogy wraps up nicely on a light-hearted comedic note... a light-hearted comedic note filled with zombies.Check out the podcast