What's On the Pile

I wanted to do a little something special for the episode number, but I was ruled out. Instead, listen as we simp for Charlize Theron and discuss her awesomeness, even the stinkers. Then we talk about The Old Guard (2020), a Charlize Theron joint.

This week we watch the A24 release "Saint Maud" (2019), directed by Rose Glass. Saint Maud tells the story of Maud, a quiet yet pious hospice nurse taking care of famous American dancer Amanda, who has cancer. They develop a dangerous bond - is Maud speaking with God? Who knows. Listen and find out!

This time we'll be talking about the man, the myth, the legend, Sam Raimi, and his take on the Western with "The Quick and the Dead." We'll also be discussing the Western as a genre, and all the sub-genres that come along with it.

We're a day late and a dollar short on our Halloween episode, but who cares! It may be Nov 1, but we'll always watch a good horror movie. This week we check out genre master John Carpenter's The Prince of Darkness (1987), a science-meets-religion horror piece. We'll also be talking about John Carpenter's other works, so pull up a chair and check it out!

We continue with our month of horror with a discussion around prolific artist Clive Barker, including his writing and film work. Then we talk about the new Hellraiser (2022), directed by David Bruckner and starring Jamie Clayton as The Hell Priest, aka Pinhead.

We're back with our first horror film in the month of October with The Wolf of Snow Hollow, a bizarre little werewolf slasher where mostly women are killed. Isn't that just how it is? Anyway, some of use liked it, one of us HATED it. Find out who by listening! Listen, damn you!

After a long break, we're back! In this episode we discuss The House (2022), a stop-motion anthology arthouse film on Netflix. We also discuss stop-motion in general. Join us! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

This week's film is The Platform (2019), a Netflix offering about a sort of social experiment prison, where the prison is over 200 stories into the ground with one cell per floor. Two people are kept in each cell, and everyday, a platform full of food is delivered in the center of each room for two minutes. A platform that runs out of food when it gets too low. Allegory abounds! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

This week we revisit the Raid series with The Raid 2 (2014). Taking place almost immediately after the events of the first film, this time we see Rama being recruited to go undercover in a prison in order to bring the man who killed his brother to justice. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

This episode it's back to the theater with Gypsy, the 1962 musical biopic based on the stage play about the most famous Burlesque dancer of all time, Gypsy Rose Lee, and her narcissistic stage mother who pushes her into stripping. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

What better way to celebrate the Oscars, now a month past due, than by watching a movie that shares a title with the best picture winner? Jenner and Hsien take a look at CODA (2021), an acronym standing for Child of Deaf Adults, and also the concluding passage of a piece of music. It's about a young woman pursuing a music career while trying to help her parents with communication. Nate, on the other hand, watched the epic Coda (2019), a Patrick Stewart vehicle with Katie Holmes as his... er, love interest. Yeah. He's a pianist with stage fright, she's a journalist who worships him. It's amazing. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

This week on What's On the Pile we ask the question "what was your eureka moment?" When did you realize the actual intentions of a movie? We also play some more of Hsien's games! Then, we discuss The Power of the Dog (2021), Jane Campion's film about toxic masculinity (amongst other things) starring Benedict Cumberbatch, currently on Netflix. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

We're back from vacation with another Oscar contender (it didn't win) about a month after the Oscars finished: Drive My Car, the 2021 film based on Haruki Murakami's short story works, about a husband whose philandering wife dies suddenly. It's a deeply depressing and melancholy film. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

It's Guillermo Del Toro night on What's on the Pile with another Oscar nominee, Nightmare Alley (2021), starring Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, freaking Ron Perlman and Mary Steenburgen, this cast is stacked! And although the Oscars are over and we know all about the outcomes and slaps that happened, we're going to continue with our Oscar viewings because we still really want to see the movies! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

This week we take on another Oscar contender with Licorice Pizza (2021), Paul Thomas Anderson's coming of age film. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

It's musical theater night on What's On the Pile as we take a look at another Academy Award nominee, this time for best actor in Andrew Garfield, playing Jonathan Larson, writer of the Off Broadway sensation Rent. We'll also be discussing other musicals, so join us for the conversation! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Join us this week as we start taking on some of the Academy Award nominees from this year, starting with "Don't Look Up" (2021), starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, and directed by Adam McKay. Don't Look Up tells the story of an extinction level event and the society that could give less of a shit. It's super cynical! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

No movie this week folks as we, instead, answer some questions and have a general discussion around different movies that we might not otherwise get to talk about on the show. It's a fun episode, so join us! Movies discussed: "Stand By Me," "The Devil's Advocate," "Wonderboys," "Tremors," "E.T.," "Amadeus," "Ghostbusters: Afterlife," multiple Spider-mans, and a bunch more! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

This week chivalry is only kind of dead with A Knight's Tale, the story of William (Heath Ledger) and his friends and their quest to find food through fraud, with fun anachronisms throughout. Following that is The Green Knight. This A24 release is a telling of the Arthurian legend "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" starring Dev Patel as Gawain. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

This week we delve into Henri Georges Clouzot's The Wages of Fear (1953), a nihilistic film about four ex-pats taking a job driving trucks filled with nitroglycerin to an oil fire. Along the way they have philosophical adventures. After that is Sorcerer (1977), the William Friedkin remake starring Roy Scheider. It tells the same familiar story, only with the experimental nature of 70s filmmaking and a lot more backstory. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Get ready for some hard-boiled ridiculousness starting with Shattered, the 1991 Wolfgang Peterson romantic thriller starring Tom Berenger, Greta Scacchi, and Bob Hoskins about a man who is in a terrible car accident and lost his memory. Or was it really an accident? After that is Cast a Deadly Spell starring Fred Ward, Julianne Moore, Clancy Brown, and David Warner. This tells the story of private detective H. Philip Lovecraft, a man in 1948 who refuses to use magic, which is all the rage. When he takes a job searching for the Necronomicon, a book of great power, his past catches up with him as he's forced to figure out who's betraying who. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

It's a Nicolas Cage double feature this week, starting with the HP Lovecraft adaptation "Color Out of Space," a film about an indescribable color and the troubles it causes for a local family; followed by "Vampire's Kiss," which some consider to be Cage's masterpiece. In it he plays a yuppie who thinks he's a vampire but clearly isn't. All hail the expressionist acting of Nicolas Cage! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

It's a ferocious double feature this week with Roar, the 1981 Tippi Hedren film where a family lives with real big cats - and we do mean real. These were untrained animals, resulting in over 70 on set injuries. It's a terrifying film. Then we have Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau, a documentary about some of the behind the scenes drama that happened on the set of Island of Dr. Moreau, the notorious Hollywood failure. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

It's a baseball themed episode here on What's On the Pile with For Love of the Game (1999), directed by Sam Raimi and starring Kevin Costner and Kelly Preston, followed by Bull Durham (1988), written and directed by Ron Shelton and starring Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, and Tim Robbins. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Join us for a Peter Strickland double feature starting with Beberian Sound Studio (2012), a quiet film where very little happens and yet you're tense the entire time, followed by In Fabric, a delightful tale of a killer dress and its hapless victims. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Happy New Year from us at What's On the Pile! Join us as we dig into one New Year's Eve themed film with 200 Cigarettes (1999), an ensemble cast of vignettes as various people try to make it to a New Year's party. After that is A Long Way Down (2014), a kind-of related to New Year's film about four people with suicidal ideation who meat on New Year's and form a suicide pact. It's more upbeat than it sounds. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Happy holidays from us here at What's On the Pile as we delve into one Christmas themed movie, and one that is tangentially related. The Wizard is the 1989 Fred Savage Nintendo commercial where we all got our first look at Super Mario Bros. 3, followed by 8-Bit Christmas, the Neil Patrick Harris holiday film about a young boy who wants nothing more than to get a NES for Christmas. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

I'm sorry about this one folks - we continue our holiday cheer with a double feature of slaughtering Santas with Silent Night Deadly Night, a mean little piece of garbage you're better off not seeing, followed by Silent Night Deadly Night 3: Better Watch out, a weird, almost art house sequel written and directed by Monte Hellman, of all people. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

It's French animation week on What's On the Pile as we delve into April and the Extraordinary World, a steampunk adventure through a dystopia. Following that is Ernest & Celestine, a sweet story about a bear, a mouse, and institutional oppression. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

It's an extra large episode this week as we delve into the world of Arrakis, or Dune, in both interpretations of Frank Herbert's novel. Starting with Dune (1984), we explore David Lynch's maligned vision of the novel, followed by Dune (2021), Denis Villeneuve's vision of the first half of the novel. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Happy Thanksgiving! We celebrate the problematic holiday by watching Pieces of April (2003), the 2003 Katie Holmes film about a young woman trying to reconnect with her estranged family, followed by Ravenous (1999), the Guy Pearce/Robert Carlyle film about a cannibal amidst a fort on the frontier. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

This week on What's On the Pile we've got Always Be My Maybe, the 2019 Ali Wong and Randall Park romantic comedy, followed by The Farewell (2019), starring Awkwafina in this dramatic comedy. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

It's action movie week here on What's On the Pile with two action masterpieces that are remarkably similar. First up is The Raid: Redemption, the Indonesian action flick directed by Gareth Evans about a group of cops ascending a monolithic tower to get to the drug lord at the top, followed by Dredd, the Karl Urban action flick about two law officers called Judges ascending a monolithic tower to get to the drug lord at the top. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Thought we were done with horror because October is over? Think again! On this episode we have a werewolf double feature, starting with the burning garbage heap that is called My Mom's a Werewolf (1989), followed by the box office bomb The Wolfman (2010). Awoooo! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Horror October comes to a close with two Hammer classics: Horror of Dracula (1958), a retelling of the Bram Stoker classic, followed by Brides of Dracula (1960), which does not actually contain THE Dracula, just A Dracula. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

We continue our horror movie month with Slither (2006), the James Gunn directed splatter comedy about an extraterrestrial threat, followed by so-bad-it's-good-on-purpose The VelociPastor (2018), a love story about a man who changes into a velociraptor and eats people. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Join us as we continue our month of horror with Julian Sands and Richard E Grant in Warlock (1989), followed by Jeffrey Combs in the seminal work Re-Animator (1985). --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

It's October, so you know what that means - a month of horror here on What's On the Pile! We kick things off with the Argentinian horror film Terrified (2017) and follow it up with Japanese horror comedy One Cut of the Dead (2017). Let's get spooky! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

We're trying something a little different on What's On the Pile as we re-visit movies we've hated! First up is the Hugh Jackman Universal Monsters creature feature Van Helsing (2004), followed by the sci-fi horror described as "Hellraiser in space," Event Horizon (1997). --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

It's animation week here as we check out Twilight Sparkle and the other mane 6 with My Little Pony the Movie (2017), followed by Ralph Bakshi's fever dream Wizards. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Get a double dose of French director Leos Carax with Holy Motors (2012), a surreal science fiction picture about media consumption and progressing technology, among other things; and Annette (2021), a film about two people who fall in love, have a baby, and that baby is a puppet. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

It's Jeunet et Caro week with Delicatessen (1991), a film about the people living above a sinister delicatessen, all during the post apocalypse; followed by The City of Lost Children (1995), a surrealist fairy tale about a little girl, her friend, and their search for his brother. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

It's Southern ladies week on What's On the Pile with Steel Magnolias (1989) and Fried Green Tomatoes (1991)! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

This weeks movies are Sweetheart, the 2019 horror film about a castaway versus a fish monster, and The Perfection (2018), a movie with so many twists and turns, a plot synopsis might constitute a spoiler. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

This week we take on two huge religiously themed studio horror films - The Omen (1976), and The Exorcist (1973). --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

This week, join us as we take a look at two black and white biopics: Mank (2020) starring Gary Oldman, and Ed Wood (1994) starring Johnny Depp. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Join us for a Charlie Kaufman double feature, with Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet starring in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), followed by the Philip Seymore Hoffman led Synecdoche, New York (2008) --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

This week it's another gaming episode as Hsien and Nate talk about their Soulsborne experiences! Also discussed: Ratchet and Clank: A Rift Apart, and Shadow of the Colossus. Also, Nate makes a gaff! Can you spot it? --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

This week we've got a horror comedy double feature with Psycho Goreman (2020), the touching tale of a malevolent space monster and the psychotic little girl who controls him, followed by Tucker and Dale versus Evil (2010), the story of two hillbillies who are mistaken for slashers by a bunch of dumb college kids through a series of misunderstandings. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

This week it's an Irwin Allen spectacular with two of the most well known disaster films in cinema history, The Poseidon Adventure (1972) – the story of a group of people trying to survive a capsized cruise liner – and The Towering Inferno (1974), the story of a group of people trying to survive a burning building. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

This week, we take on the Wicker Man-ish folk horror films Midsommar (2019), a A24 release about a bunch of grad school kids travelling to Sweden to get Sweded, where they are soon introduced to a weird culty commune through free drugs – followed by Apostle (2018), the story of Dan Stevens obliterating an entire cult through drug addiction and misery while searching for his kidnapped sister. Happy Summer Solstice! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app