Multiplex Overthruster

What happens when screen legends Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche play obscenely wealthy commodities brokers who wager on an insidious, impromptu nature-vs.-nurture experiment that subjects an unwitting Eddie Murphy and Dan Ackroyd to radical reversals of fortune? You get an '80s screwball comedy update of The Prince and the Pauper that also showcases the great Jamie Lee Curtis and Denholm Elliott, along with a host of amusing cameos by the likes of Al Franken, Bo Diddley, and Giancarlo Esposito, all set to an Elmer Bernstein score built on the shoulders of Mozart. And it's a Christmas movie! (Kind of.) Join Javi, Paul and - inscrutably - Producer Brad as they learn more than they ever wanted to about pork belly and concentrated frozen orange juice futures trading, navigate the film's alarmingly casual racism and homophobia (not to mention a painful bit involving a gorilla), and behold the biggest smoked salmon ever to grace the silver screen. For a better understanding of commodities, short selling, and The Eddie Murphy Rule, check out this great episode of Planet Money.Follow us!InstagramBlueskyemail: Multiplexoverthruster@gmail.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens when you put the director of Saturday Night Fever together with the star of All That Jazz? Sadly, it's Blue Thunder. No it's not Tropic Thunder, and it's not Thunder From Down Under. It's Blue Thunder. What is Blue Thunder? A depressed meteorological phenomenon? Nope, it's a weaponized high tech surveillance helicopter that could be out there right now, surveilling you with weaponized high tech or something. It could have been a paranoid thriller from the 70s - a timely warning about the danger of blurring the line between the police and the military… but mostly it's about the heights of exasperation that ensue when one of our hosts can't tell the difference between a Trans Am and a Camaro, and another reveals himself to be “Team Airwolf” at an inopportune time. Join Paul, Javi, and the increasingly high tech and weaponized Producer Brad as their attempts to make sense of Blue Thunder become a far more entertaining experience than actually watching Blue Thunder! So strap in, throttle up, and prepare for some high tech snarkilicious goodness from your weaponized, high tech pals at Multiplex Overthruster!Follow us!InstagramBlueskyemail: Multiplexoverthruster@gmail.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For decades, Javi has maintained that Octopussy is a vastly underrated and quite entertaining entry into the James Bond oeuvre… now listen as this belief crashes in a malestrom of flaming regret as Paul and the ever patient and understanding Producer Brad bear witness to the end of one of Javi's most cherished delusions! Octopussy may have been billed as “James Bond's all time action high” but in this clear-eyed rewatch, the Multiplex Overthruster crew finds that surviving the experience of watching Octopussy may be as lethal, if not much more lethal, than James Bond's travails as he tries to stop some rich bad guy from doing some awful things with a strange macguffin for no discernible reason… also there's a woman with a really awkward nickname. On the plus column, there is a buzzsaw-yoyo wielding assassin, and a cool mini jet… which we wish we could have used to escape from this film! It's Multiplex Overthruster's all-time snark high as they enter the world of high stakes international espionage and emerge changed, but not entertained!Follow us!InstagramBlueskyemail: Multiplexoverthruster@gmail.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

SHALL WE PLAY A GAME? The Multiplex Overthruster crew has faced many dangers - wrathful space dictators, power-hungry fantasy wizards, horny suburban teenagers - but now they face their greatest challenge! Is it the artificial intelligence playing the titular War Games? Is it the military industrial complex that kept them in fear of the mushroom cloud for their entire childhoods… well, yes, it's those things but it's also (dun-dun-dun) NOSTALGIA! Marvel as Javi rediscovers his love for a pre-internet world that has long passed us by, thrill as Paul negotiates a much-needed social media detente with Javi, and wince as the long-suffering Producer Brad fights the never-ending battle to keep them on point! Is it Global Thermonuclear War, or is it… WAR GAMES? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Grand Guignol of Geekery that is Paul, Javi, and - exasperatedly - Producer Brad's deep dive into the final chapter of the first STAR WARS trilogy reaches its apotheotic conclusion in this, the second part of the first episode of our second season! Thrill as the intrepid Multiplex Overthruster crew braves not just the narrative wilds of one of the most anticipated movies of their childhood, but also the many decades of memories, opinions, and late night discussions of the saga that has defined popular culture for most of their lives! Marvel at Javi's analysis of his misguided disdain for a movie he now realizes he loved all along! Witness in wild wonder as Paul's gift for superlatives gets a workout for the ages! It's a season premiere that will go down in Multiplex Overthruster lore - it's RETURN OF THE JEDI!Follow us!Instagram Bluesky email: Multiplexoverthruster@gmail.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At long last, the Summer of '83 is here, and kicks off with the most anticipated sequel of the decade, RETURN OF THE JEDI! And since this is probably the only STAR WARS film we'll ever get to in this podcast, it demands our first ever (and likely last) two-part episode! Buckle up as Javi, Paul and - graciously - Producer Brad dive deeper than they've ever dived before (what, you thought we couldn't go deeper than STAR TREK II?) to discuss with dizzying delight the original May 25, 1983 theatrical version (Lapti Nek! Yub Nub!) of the triumphant finale of the STAR WARS trilogy for our gloriously geektacular second season premiere.Follow us!Instagram Bluesky email: Multiplexoverthruster@gmail.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Your favorite cinematic podcast time machine is back in action! This Memorial Day weekend, Season 2 kicks off our journey through the Summer of '83 with Return of the Jedi - our first and probably (hopefully?) only two-part episode ever! Meanwhile, all episodes of Season 1 spanning the Summer of '82 are available now for your binge-listening or selective sampling pleasure, including several never-before-released episodes. Tell your friends and enemies! Like, follow, review, and share! Feast upon our works and bask in the glory that is MULTIPLEX OVERTHRUSTER! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to our first ever spring special! As we approach the Summer of '83, Javi, Paul and Producer Brad dive into Tony Scott's extravagantly evocative and super stylish goth-punk erotic vampire thriller THE HUNGER, starring the gobsmackingly great-looking Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie, and Susan Sarandon. Mod music video and commercial aesthetics collide with neo-noir cinema like never before in this creepy cool treasure trove of a time capsule set in '80s NYC where vampires are real, but very different than any you've seen before. Moviegoers on April 29, 1983, were simply not ready for it, but late night cable viewers and adventurous VHS renters soon would be. You don't want to sleep on this one, especially as we examine the film in context and contrast to other standout vampire fare such as LET THE RIGHT ONE IN and SINNERS.Follow us!InstagramBlueskyemail: Multiplexoverthruster@gmail.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to our first ever holiday special! Having traversed the Summer of '82, Javi, Paul and Producer Brad are back at the multiplex to witness the whirlwind of wonders that is Jim Henson's phantasmagoric puppetpalooza THE DARK CRYSTAL. Audiences young and old were both captivated and confounded by the strange spectacle of this creepy creature feature inexplicably intruding upon their holiday season (who on earth thought it was a good idea to release it on Dec. 17?), but its meticulous magnificence cannot be denied! Join us as we soak in the cinematic sorcery conjured by Jim Henson, Frank Oz, illustrator extraordinaire Brian Froud, and Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz. And this episode is special in more ways than one, as Javi shares his amazing experience working on the film's Emmy-winning prequel series he helped write and produce, THE DARK CRYSTAL: AGE OF RESISTANCE.Follow us!Instagram Bluesky email: Multiplexoverthruster@gmail.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

All great institutions bestow awards… and now so does Multiplex Overthruster! It's our first ever Multi Awards episode, in which Paul, Javi, and - mercifully - Producer Brad run down the nominees and winners from all of the films they watched during this most august of summer movie summers. In addition to naming their Best Picture, Director, Screenplay - and so on and so on - Producer Brad has also compiled a list of superlatives (“best character introduction of all time!”) and revisits them with the benefit of hindsight to see which stood the test of time! Will Javi stand by that thing he said about Captain Morgan in “The Sword and the Sorcerer”? We won't spoil it here. Trust us, you don't want to miss the first ever Multi Awards! Listen and share so that it won't be the last!Follow us!Instagram Bluesky email: Multiplexoverthruster@gmail.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The 1980s was not only a time of genre excellence, but also one of romantic comedies about surly tone-deaf white men and their indefatigable struggle to remain that way. To this semi golden age of toxic masculinity, we consign “Paul Mazursky's Tempest,” in which an otherwise sensitive and big-hearted filmmaker somehow marshals the talents of John Cassavetes, Gena Rowlands, Susan Sarandon, Raul Julia, and (in her big screen debut) Molly Ringwald, to deliver some of the least likable characters in screen history. And it's (vaguely) based on Shakespeare's “The Tempest”, which only leaves Paul, Javi, and - indubitably - Producer Brad filling the much needed void with some of the finest comedy commentary of their careers!Follow us!InstagramBlueskyemail: Multiplexoverthruster@gmail.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the world of international espionage and Cold War intrigue there is no agent more secret than… The Soldier. This may perhaps be explained by the utter failure of this forgotten film. In this scintillating episode, a confounded Paul, Javi, and - serenely - Producer Brad investigate the first and only adventure of a would-be American James Bond in a desperate mission to uncover an international nuclear plot of international peculiar people hellbent on doing international terrible things. Sigh. It's not a good movie, or even a coherent travelogue, but it's possibly our funniest episode, and also among our shortest! (Though not quite as short as crazed Klaus Kinski's confounding cameo as a sinister snow bunny assassin.)Follow us!InstagramBlueskyemail: Multiplexoverthruster@gmail.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Behold! Paul, Javi, and - majestically - Producer Brad brave yet another sword-and-sorcery spectacular-ish in this story of a warrior on a quest to find… honestly, it's hard to remember, but it definitely had something to do with a weird angry guy (Rip Torn) in a strange place with a thing. And some sort of large roasted animal leg. Oh yes, and the warrior not only has a big sword, tiny loincloth, and major sixpack, he can somehow also talk to animals. Mostly ferrets. He also talks to Tanya Roberts, in an apotheotic bid for 1980s genre queen status. And as if that weren't enough, don't miss the shocking revelation of how Paul was once traumatized by ferrets belonging to an unnamed Oscar-winning director. It's epic-ish battles, dazzling-ish magic, and yes, ferrets… it's The Beastmaster!Follow us!InstagramBlueskyemail: Multiplexoverthruster@gmail.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For the balance of the summer Paul, Javi, and - fearlessly - Producer Brad have braved one unbelievable movie premise after another: humanoid androids, murderous artificial intelligences, vengeful genetically engineered intergalactic dictators, the wastelands of the post-apocalypse, barbarian mercenaries with jet-powered swords… even singing sex workers have shown themselves to be no match for their laser-like analytical focus. But on the sixteenth weekend of the summer, our podcasters may have met their match with Amy Heckerling's film of Cameron Crowe's chronicle of 1980's high school shenanigans “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”. What happens when three dyed-in-the-wool geeks face the unthinkable: sexually active high schoolers with no interest in genre films, TV, or comic books? Marvel as the intrepid Multipex Overthruster crew struggles to make sense of something so far out of their reality that they are frequently rendered speechless and without the capacity for rational thought! It's the ultimately challenge - will the crew survive? There's only one way to find out!

After two perilous weeks of comedies about sex workers, Paul, Javi, and - inescapably - Producer Brad find themselves in more familiar territory with The Sword and the Sorcerer. It's peak '80s as the stars of both Matt Houston and Manimal cross swords and… uh, sorcery?… in this incredibly diverting low budget bacchanal of wizardry and bloodshed. Forget Conan The Barbarian, Prince Talon is here to slay some beasts, take down some tyrants, chomp on a roasted leg of cow, and buckle his swash with his three-bladed, rocket-powered sword.  Get ready to rock the multiplex with the most action a very limited budget can buy. Marvel at the cavalcade of television stalwarts cashing a paycheck in the magical kingdom of Griffith Park during their hiatus. Learn Javi's valuable lesson in cave rentals, discover the (possible) secret origin of Game of Thrones' Red Wedding, and quiver in wonder as we reveal the greatest line reading in cinema history! How are you not already listening to this episode???

The summer of '82 continues to astound and confound Paul, Javi, and - inevitably - Producer Brad by serving up a SECOND romantic comedy about sex workers in as many weeks! After the soul-destroying pyrrhic victory that was “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas”, the Multiplex Overthruster crew trades in small town Texas for sleazy New York City for “Night Shift”! Though directed by Ron Howard and starring Henry Winkler and Shelley Long, this one is most memorable for giving future Beetlejuice and Batman Michael Keaton his first starring role: and what better way to start a movie career than in a comedy chock full of prostitutes, pimps, murderous stand up comedians, oversized top hats, frozen corpses, bloodthirsty rottweilers, Shannen Doherty's first screen appearance, and bad take out! So dim the lights and chill the Sunny-D because we're firing up the hearse and heading off to the Night Shift!

There comes a time when we are all tested to our very core. Paul, Javi and — unflappably — Producer Brad all thought that time had come six weeks ago with Grease 2. They were wrong; that time is now. Our faithful co-hosts face their darkest hour as they descend into the dungeon of despair that is The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, a film that makes Grease 2 look (and sound) like Singin' in the Rain. Not even the divine gift of Dolly Parton can save this torturous endeavor, which somehow renders Burt Reynolds abrasively charmless.  Join us as we brave our most treacherous moviegoing challenge yet, and are surreally surprised to discover one startling scene of sci-fi (seriously!), and one spellbinding song of sublimity. Along the way, Paul (our resident Texan) will pierce his PTSD with some injections of insight contextualizing the film's real world roots. Trust us, you never want to see this movie, but you definitely want to listen to this episode. 

Before Fury Road, before Furiosa, there was Max. Mad Max. The Road Warrior. Join Paul and Javi, and - without a doubt - Producer Brad as they board the last of the V8 interceptors and brave the dangerous domain of the Lord Humongous of the wastelands.  That's right, this week it's George Miller's seminal masterpiece “The Road Warrior” (or “Mad Max 2” for those of you not in the United States in 1982) - the film that damn near invented the post-apocalyptic car wars genre. It's leather, shoulder pads, and gasoline galore at the multiplex this week… and you better watch out for that razor-sharp boomerang!

Two years before William Gibson's novel Neuromancer coined the term “cyberspace” the Disney corporation unleashed a bold and daring vision of anthropomorphic distributed computing gone wild. Featuring a young and wildly talented Jeff Bridges, and more dance belts and BMX armor than you can shake a data disc at, Steven Lisberger's ground-breaking proto-CGI extravaganza, Tron,  is a bizarre and beautiful vision of a future that never came to pass! Join Javi, Paul, and -  needless to say - Producer Dumont as they get digitized into the gaming grid to marvel at Syd Mead's generation-defining production design, do battle with the nefarious Master Control Program, and struggle to make sense of the movie's plot!

This week Paul, Javi, and - indubitably - Producer Brad contemplate Conan the Barbarian, John Milius' sweeping, serpent-filled, and surprisingly soup-laden adaptation of Robert E. Howard's legendary pulp hero, brought to laconic life by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the role that made him an icon. Crom commands you to heed this episode as we chronicle Arnold's epic quest to deliver a monologue that measures up to those of his magnificently mellifluous co-stars James Earl Jones, Max Von Sydow and Mako! And did we mention the soup?  (And yes, astute listeners, we realize we're breaking continuity by reaching back to a movie that opened on May 14, 1982, but you can trust us as much as steel that this journey into high adventure is infinitely preferable to the wheel of pain that was The Secret of NIMH!)

When John Carpenter sets a movie in a barren terrain of ice and snow, you can bet bucks to beans that the only thing colder than the setting is his regard for the human soul! Paul, Javi, and - indubitably - Producer Brad take on one of the greatest studies in fear and paranoia ever put to film: John Carpenter's The Thing. Released on June 25, 1982, it's one of the rare remakes that outdoes the original in vision and enduring influence, this paragon of the horror genre continues to chill audiences to the bone to this day, and Multiplex Overthruster is here to tell you why! 

Though largely, and justifiably, forgotten since its release on June 25, 1982, Hal Needham's Megaforce is a truly breathtaking experience. And we don't necessarily mean “breathtaking” in a positive way. This week, Paul, Javi and — of course — Producer Brad take one for the team and come back much changed, chafed, and itching to chat through this grand guignol of gunfire, explosions and toxic masculinity. The manly men of Megaforce may live by the slogan “Deeds not words”, but so many of those deeds are duds, and we have witty, wise words of warning! It is truly one of the most mystifying films from the summer of '82, and we watched it so you don't have to.

Los Angeles. November 2019. Paul, Javi, and - naturally - Producer Brad, kick off our epic triple feature weekend of June 25, 1982, by revisiting a sense-stunning vision of the distant future that is somehow now our recent past. One of the most influential films of all time, Ridley Scott's towering masterpiece has been imitated, examined, recut, recut again, sequelized, and soon sequelized some more. Join us as we explore the mesmerizing multicultural megalopolis of BLADE RUNNER in its original theatrical cut (yes, with Harrison Ford's reluctant narration), viewed through the lens of the revisionist versions that would (nearly) perfect this landmark of sci-fi cinema.  You do not want to miss this episode, which culminates in our co-hosts' most shocking disagreement yet! Thanks to the wonder of podcasting, these moments will not be lost like tears in the rain (though they may elicit tears of laughter).

It is the height of the cold war and the Soviets have developed a fighter that defies radar detection and responds to its pilots thoughts! Naturally, the best man for the job of stealing this lethal next-gen weapon is a burned-out Vietnam war veteran who is prone to debilitating flashbacks! This week Paul, Javi, and - naturally - Producer Brad take the wayback machine to June 18, 1982, a simpler time when we as a nation knew who the bad guys were, we know where they were, and only Clint Eastwood could get in there to steal their most valuable weapon.

Paul becomes Javi's psychotherapist as we journey back to June 11, 1982, in this white-knuckle discussion of colonialism, media saturation, and the deservedly hallowed place that cinematic titan Steven Spielberg occupies in our popular culture — all of it musingly masquerading as a discourse on what would become (for the next decade) the biggest blockbuster of all time, E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL.  Don't miss our heaviest, most introspective episode, which ranges from a profoundly personal elegy for a suburban American childhood that will never again exist, to a rhapsodic ode to the exquisite magic of cinema. We'll be right here.

Javi and Paul descend into the labyrinth of the Dada-ist haiku that is GREASE 2 and ponder the imponderable. Is Rydell High actually haunted by ghosts as Javi theorizes, and is this somehow also a stealth remake of Richard Donner's Superman? Could anyone other than the transcendent Michelle Pfeiffer have possibly pulled off her scenes, and holy crap is that teenage Pamela Adlon? Will either of our co-hosts emerge with their sanity intact? Tune in to find out — if you dare! — in our most deliriously deranged episode yet.

Boldly go into our most gloriously geektacular (and yes, longest) episode as Javi and Paul embark on an epic exultation of the soaring sacred text that is STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN. On June 4, 1982, Nicholas Meyer arguably saved the franchise by redefining it as a space opera mashup of Horatio Hornblower and Run Silent Run Deep, with a virtuosic score by the great James Horner. Instead of making sequel to 1979's STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE, Meyer cunningly chose to forge a follow-up to the 1967 episode “Space Seed,” reuniting Ricardo Montalban with the iconic role of Khan, unleashing his towering performance as the ultimate antagonist. (And stick around until the end for a shocking decision about what our next movie will be!)

Prepare yourself for gooey geeky goodness as Javi and Paul travel back to June 4, 1982, to ponder POLTERGEIST in our spooktacular second episode! Tobe Hooper horror insidiously invades Spielbergian suburbia as a freaky little girl is sucked into a TV set via spectral static. This ingenious phantasmagoria features beautiful analog VFX wizardry by ILM, a refreshingly functional family, and one of the greatest expository monologues in genre cinema.

On Memorial Day Weekend of 1982, Rocky Balboa's latest and greatest challenger entered the cinematic pantheon. On this first episode, join Paul, Javi, and, of course, Producer Brad as they root for the Italian Stallion and his new nemesis, the legendary Clubber Lang, played by the formidable and inimitable 80s icon Mr. T. Can Rocky get back the Eye of the Tiger in time to defend all he has fought for? Come along with us to the multiplex for the answer - because we pity the fool who does not!

Meet Javi and Paul, hosts of Multiplex Overthruster: Summer of '82.