Shows
Magellans at the MoviesPlanes, Trains and AutomobilesTravel. Doesn’t the very concept just send a shiver down your spine? Sure, it’s nice to be at the Brickworks Museum in beautiful Southampton, England, but getting there is a nightmare of lines, layovers, fares, and odors. Honestly it’s enough to put one off of learning about bricks at the premier institute for global brick study in the first place, but is it enough to put you off getting home for a nice Thanksgiving meal? Certainly not for the heroes of Planes, Trains and Automobiles, a 1987 holiday themed comedy about two mismatched travelers struggling to travel across...
2025-11-2250 minMagellans at the MoviesThe Wizard of OzWizards have a long history, not just in movies, but in fiction generally. Whether they’re running a class action lawsuit just waiting to happen in the form of a deathtrap boarding school, going on road trips to return some seriously defective jewelry, or burning things at random to punctuate each sentence, audiences everywhere delight in sorcerers of screen, page, and stage. Fictional wizards (as opposed to real wizards, of course) could also come in the form of a de facto monarch lording over an enclave of green structures erected in his own selfish image, exchanging favors for the as...
2025-10-2453 minMagellans at the MoviesEl Camino: A Breaking Bad MovieMoving on can be hard for many reasons, but for those of us leaving behind disinterested parents, monthslong torture, and the deaths of most everyone we care about, consigning most of our lives to memory lane is more than welcome. I, for example, yearn to relocate to a remote village in the Alps and thereby escape the many obligations I've accumulated to the wealthy investors in my "dog to human translation" company, but that's a silly example. For a more serious case, look no further than Jesse Pinkman's mission to get the heck out of Dodge/Albuquerque as seen...
2025-09-271h 02Magellans at the MoviesThe Matrix ReloadedOh no! There’s been a glitch in the matrix, forcing the Wachowskis to reload their save! Thankfully they’ve backed up their data and can proceed with the first of two planned sequels wrapping up the original Matrix trilogy. The Matrix Reloaded, like so many sequels, tries to follow up a groundbreaking first installment by embodying a single word: more. More elaborate kung fu fisticuffs, more Agent Smiths, more convoluted philosophizing, more whisper-talk, and of course, much more latex. The result is a dense, action-packed, confusing, and slightly kinky middle act that, while hardly an object of derision, is g...
2025-09-1358 minMagellans at the MoviesMan of SteelFaster than a speeding bullet! Stronger than a locomotive! Able to leap buildings in a single bound! Struggling with depression and guilt over thousands of lives lost in the crossfire! Duh-duh-daaaa, it's Superman! Behold the last son of Krypton as he . . . just plows through a building full of innocent people and sends the entire thing crashing to the ground in an apocalyptic display of death and destruction, dang. Cheer as the guardian of Metropolis . . . kinda stares moodily into the middle distance as if he were an office worker who just remembered they left their packed lunch at home . . . huh...
2025-08-011h 25Magellans at the MoviesJurassic World: RebirthThis is all Nathan’s fault. Contact us/Requests/Questions: MagellansMovies@gmail.comDonate: https://paypal.me/magellensmovies?country.x=US&locale.x=en_USCheck out our blog for more reviews and movie content!!! https://magellansatthemoviesblog.blogspot.com/
2025-07-111h 16Magellans at the MoviesPredatorWhen aliens show up in movies, it’s usually either en masse, as part of a hostile invasion force, or, if they’re alone, as essentially a lost puppy that can teach some young child an important and heartwarming lesson. Not so for the Yautja, a solo hunter who’s as much like a puppy as a shark is like a goldfish. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re probably more familiar with the Yautja’s more common sobriquet: predators! That’s right, today Magellans at the Movies is reviewing the 1987 science fiction horror action classic P...
2025-06-1351 minMagellans at the MoviesMurder on the Orient Express (2017)When people are killed, when children go missing, when affairs are had, the detectives of the world step in and smoke, deduce, analyze, smoke, gather clues, smoke, fight, smoke, and light up a cigarette in search of justice. What happens, however, when the detective swaps out a fondness for recreational cancer in favor of fine cuisine and even finer facial hair? Why, then you’d have the mighty moustached sleuth Hercule Poirot, ace investigator and star of numerous movies such as Murder on the Orient Express, a 2017 who-dun-it directed by Kenneth Branagh and based on the 1934 book by Agatha Ch...
2025-05-161h 01Magellans at the MoviesThe Thing (2011)How much do you really know about your next door neighbor? I know that Greg might seem like an affable old man who putters around the garden and gives out carrot sticks on Halloween, but haven’t you ever considered that he might be a shape shifting alien with sinister designs not just on you, but the world entire? Enough about my contentious relationship with my local HOA, however, let’s talk movies, specifically The Thing, a 2011 science fiction horror movie directed by Matthis van Heijningen. This prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 classic of the same name tells the tale o...
2025-05-0959 minMagellans at the MoviesSinnersMusic is nice, isn’t it? It’s one of the oldest art forms in human history, it crosses cultural boundaries, and it contains more sub-genres and niche interests than there are cruddy “soulslikes” on Steam. As with all other forms of artistic expression, plenty can go wrong when you’re making music, especially if you’re so good at it a group of vampires rock up to your joint looking to recruit you into their band. Such is the burden borne by the heroes of Sinners, a 2025 horror movie directed by Ryan Coogler. For audiences and critics alike, Sinners has...
2025-04-251h 30Magellans at the MoviesMagellans on the 80sAh, to be alive in the 80s. An era of increasing digitization, designer drugs, and flagging dictatorships warming themselves on the dying embers of the Cold War. Like most decades in human history, the 80s had its ups and downs and crises, but unlike most decades in human history, it also had movies! This fateful decade was the age of the big, burly action hero and the soaring fantasy adventure, and the Magellans at the Movies have been hard at work over their unannounced hiatus filling out the gaps in their 80s movie knowledge, the product of which you...
2025-04-041h 30Magellans at the MoviesThe Breakfast ClubIt’s hard to be a teenager. Your body betrays you, society doesn’t trust you, your parents don’t understand you, and in the midst of all of this you’re asked to stake out an identity for yourself that may well last for the rest of your life. This can, of course, go quite wrong, and what may have been a fully functioning, contributing member of society can end up the kind of person who goes to Magic the Gathering tournaments and/or moderates a subreddit. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, however, and some...
2025-03-071h 03Magellans at the MoviesFord v FerrariVroom, vroom! Neeeeeooooowww, eeeeeeeeeeaaaa, KA-BOOM! Oh, excuse me, I didn’t see you there. I was just playing with my toy cars. It’s childish, I know, and I’ve been looking for a more mature, adult hobby to satisfy my love of speed and loud noises. I know what can help me: racing real cars! Faster speeds, louder noises, tackier sponsorships! I’m being harsh, of course, there’s more to racing than base level sensory pleasures and obnoxious McDonald’s stickers, and if you don’t believe me, just look at Ford V. Ferrari, a 2019 racing movie directed by Ja...
2025-02-221h 07Magellans at the MoviesPee-Wee's Big AdventureConsider the bicycle. Two wheels in a thin, metal frame, an uncomfortable seat, and a rusting bell to you, but to children, there once was a time when it represented freedom limited only by your lung capacity, and sometimes not even that could put a stop to a young boy or girl’s afternoon rides. Bikes aren’t just good for reminding you how much you’ve grown (in every direction, for some of us), they’re practically infused with nostalgia for those of us who grew up putting rubber to asphalt (or gravel, as the case was with the Mage...
2025-02-1447 minMagellans at the MoviesMulholland DriveHollywood has had a starring role in many of the productions it nursed to life. Be it the romantic ideal featured in The Fabelmans, the more wistfully realistic stylings of La La Land, or the caustic satire of Hail, Caesar!, tinsel town has come in for its fair share of knocks as well as odes over the years, but few quite like the 2001 film Mulholland Drive, a baffling slice of the bizarre by the sultan of surrealism and favorite director of insufferable hipsters everywhere David Lynch. Mulholland Drive has a reputation for being hard to parse out, but that...
2025-02-0756 minMagellans at the MoviesMagellans on the 90sAh, to be alive in the 90s. A time when you could bathe in the glory of early Simpsons episodes, salute the progress being made in equality and democracy across the globe, and violate the structural integrity of your hair and still be accepted in polite society. To be honest, the 90s wasn’t too shabby of a decade for the human race, especially when it comes to movies. For those of us born into the chaos and uncertainty of the twenty-first century, it may be difficult to parse through all the films released in the last decade of th...
2025-01-111h 35Magellans at the MoviesShaun of the DeadEveryone knows that zombies aren’t what they used to be. If anything, a decaying, shambolic corpse is probably the perfect metaphor for the genre as it exists right now: decrepit, feeble, and limping slowly towards nowhere in particular. There was a time, however, when zombie fiction was almost as popular as movie westerns were in their day, and that time, of course, was the early 2000s, inarguably the worst period of culture since the 1510s (your poetry sucks, Henry VIII). That’s not necessarily to say that zombie media was a reason for that decade’s irritating obsession with f...
2024-12-201h 03Magellans at the MoviesShopliftersThere truly is nothing like crime to bring a family together. Why are criminal organizations organized by families? Why do family businesses that get big also commit massive fraud? The answer is obvious: taking stuff that doesn’t belong to you is just the spit shine that your fraying familial ties are in need of. After all, it’s by embezzling listener donations that Elliot and Nathan fund their wild weekends in Vegas, and thereby foster the close sibling bond that makes this program what it is. Don’t just take my word for it, though, take it from the tr...
2024-11-0856 minMagellans at the MoviesDeadpoolIt’s hardly revolutionary to say that the superhero genre is on the decline these days. In terms of both review scores and box office returns, movies featuring men and women in brightly colored outfits throwing CGI monsters through CGI cityscapes with the aid of their CGI powers have become little more than fodder for less than favorable memes and a literally endless stream of articles with titles like “Is This the End of the Comic Book Movie?”, “Is This the end of the MCU?”, “Have Superheroes Gone the Way of the Westerns?”, and so on. Who, then, can save us from g...
2024-07-2656 minMagellans at the MoviesThe Simpsons MovieFor as long as there has been television, there has been The Simpsons. Well, that’s an exaggeration, but not by much, since The Simpsons aired a full two years before the Soviet Union was dissolved. This legend of prime-time TV took the world by storm when everyone was first introduced to its titular family of corn-colored stereotypes, and while the painful collapse in its quality since then is a saga of deterioration worthy of Edward Gibbon, for about ten years The Simpsons reigned supreme. By the time of The Simpsons Movie, a 2007 animated comedy directed by David Silverman, th...
2024-06-0757 minMagellans at the MoviesDecision to LeaveLove. It, ah . . . it’s all warm and fuzzy? Look, we’ve done like four movies about love now, I’m fresh out of ways to say that love is a multi-faceted, complicated aspect of the human experience. Hollywood, however, is emphatically not out of things to say about love, or at least they think there’s still new ground to be broken on the subject. That’s why one hundred and thirty-four years after the first motion picture was made Park Chan-wook decided to make himself a romance in the form of Decision to Leave. To be fair to PCW, hi...
2024-05-3159 minMagellans at the MoviesKingdom of the Planet of the ApesWhy can’t we all just get along? It’s a question that’s hounded human civilization since the moment a guy eating pizza crust-first, a guy eating pizza from the edge inwards, and a third guy starting at the point of the slice and working his way north all shared a meal with each other and realized that the term “civilization” is subject to audience interpretation. The obvious answer, of course, is that human beings are simply too tribal and their cultural differences too intractable for the global group-hug pacifists and diplomats have been trying to organize since the three...
2024-05-171h 05Magellans at the MoviesIn the Mood for LoveLove is a choice. Love is a feeling. Love is an idea. These are just some of the theories on that most vexing of jazz topics and its effect on the men and women who experience it. Questions on love abound, but answers have remained elusive throughout the course of human history, and if you are one such bemused soul then I’m afraid you won’t find what you're looking for in In the Mood for Love, a 2000 romance directed by Wong Kar-wai. In the Mood for Love is famously vague in its narrative and experimental in its visu...
2024-04-261h 07Magellans at the MoviesKung Fu PandaPandas. If you’re somehow not aware of them (which, like, how, they’re basically the poster-animal for endangered species), they’re not exactly what you’d call limber. While the great felines of the world regularly perform feats of stunning acrobatics and athleticism, those of the ursine persuasion, especially panda bears, are stuck lumbering around with all the speed and agility of a wheelchair made out of bricks. This is fine for Youtube compilations of pandas failing to exhibit a strong grasp of even basic motor skills, but if you’re an enterprising young film studio aiming to center a m...
2024-04-1252 minMagellans at the MoviesDune: Part Two (ft Ryan Magalhães)As you settle in with your coffee and gummy worms to enjoy another episode of the smash hit podcast Magellans at the Movies, you’re probably thinking about how charismatic and trustworthy your favorite hosts are. You're probably thinking to yourself, "Gee willy those Magellans are cool, I'd do anything they asked me to!" Ah, my naive, innocent reader; although we're flattered, we must caution you against such sentiments. Hero worship rarely leads to heroism, and putting on blinders to the faults in our leaders is a recipe for disaster. For more on this, just look at Dune: Part Tw...
2024-03-151h 09Magellans at the MoviesCity of God (ft Eduardo Magalhães III)If you’re a child of the Brazilian slums in the 1960s, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but you’ve been dealt a pretty lousy hand. Growing up you can look forward to such unpleasantness as abject poverty, filth, social immobility, filth, endemic violence, police brutality, filth, and uncleanliness. If, however, you’re of a mind to transcend the lowly status into which you were thrust, your best bet is that great equalizer, that forge of infamy, that last refuge of the desperate and first port of call for the avaricious, I’m talking, of course...
2024-02-161h 34Magellans at the MoviesThe MenuFood is what makes the world go round. In a very literal sense it keeps you alive, but it also strengthens economies, buttresses cultures, and, if you have the stomach for it (tee hee), it can be a medium for artistic expression. I make this terrible joke because the world of fine dining can be a demanding one. Facing pressure from critics and customers to continuously push boundaries and innovate in fields that maybe don’t really need innovating, it’s no wonder that the great chefs of the world will sometimes resort to increasingly outlandish stunts to capture audi...
2024-02-0258 minMagellans at the MoviesMonty Python and the Holy GrailThe Holy Grail is basically the Holy Grail of points of comparison for very valuable things that are also extremely hard to find. Indiana Jones found it, of course, but he had to leave it where it was so that doesn’t count, especially since, even before our favorite archeologist cracked his first whip, the grail was the subject of much interest among medieval kings and scholars. One such noted medieval scholar was Monty Python, a guy (or possibly a group of guys, only your dad knows for sure) who was more hijinks-prone than a Loony Tune. His/their mo...
2023-11-2443 minMagellans at the MoviesThe KillerHe’s back, ladies and gentlemen. After a brief foray into a crisp, charming biopic without even a single violent murder, David Your-Pets-Don’t-Love-You-They-Love-Being-Fed Fincher returns to reclaim his throne as the sultan of sadness with all the blood, nihilism, and that distinctly Fincher-y sickly hue of yellow you expect from him in The Killer, a 2023 psychological thriller based on the French graphic novel of the same name written by Alexis Nolent released exclusively to Netflix because that’s a thing movies do now. The Killer has earned plenty of sevens, eights, and occasional nines from the general movie going...
2023-11-171h 00Magellans at the MoviesBefore SunriseLove. It’s all you need, it conquers all, it’s patient and kind, it’s generally excellent. Even beyond those qualities is the fact that you never know where you might stumble into it. Romantic connections can happen in raves, school, or even online without ever encountering the object of your affections in real life! Or, if you’re a pair of attractive young people traveling across Europe, it can start in a train and follow you off said train and onto the streets of Vienna at night. I’m referring, of course, to the romance of Before Sunrise, a 1995 rom...
2023-10-1457 minMagellans at the MoviesThe Magellans on the Star Wars FranchiseIt really is impossible to overstate just how ubiquitous Star Wars is as a franchise. It’s easier to find the Ark of the Covenant than it is to find someone so culturally illiterate, so far removed from the bright center of the galaxy that they’ve never heard of George Lucas’ civilization dominating brainchild. Star Wars means many different things to many different people, and today, for some reason, Magellans at the Movies is revealing what it means to them. And not just the movies, but the video games, and the TV shows too! That’s right, Star Warriors...
2023-09-292h 03Magellans at the MoviesPsychoIt’s been a long day on the road. You’ve annoyed the locals of whatever tourist trap you’ve been to, you’ve been swindled out of your life savings in exchange for two post cards and commemorative mug, and now you’re looking to cap off a successful day with a good night’s kip. This poses a problem, however, because you forgot to pack your house, and now you need shelter for the cold night. Well, you’re in luck, because thousands of years ago some bright young entrepreneur came up with the idea of the inn, where you can...
2023-09-2259 minMagellans at the MoviesTraining DayBosses, amirite? American civilization is practically founded on the idea that the 9-5 worker drone one tier above you is a bit of a handful, denying you overtime, forcing you to give up your vacation days, and making that promotion contingent upon you laughing at their lame jokes to a not insignificant degree. All of that’s bad, of course, but at least we can be grateful that supervisor Greg doesn’t take us on an increasingly dangerous tour of Los Angeles’ criminal underbelly while skillfully positioning us for his own dastardly schemes. That, unfortunately, is the lot of Jake Hoyt i...
2023-09-1553 minMagellans at the MoviesBarry LyndonAh, to be an Irish rogue in the 1700s. It was such a glorious time if your name was Charles, last name The Twelfth or if you were a doctor peddling in leech based medicinal techniques. Fortunately for those of us who are neither we can just watch the goings on of this time via the magical technology of moving pictures, and even more fortunately we can then hear them being discussed by geniuses in the art of film criticism or in this case by underqualified Brazilian-Americans with some time on their hands. This week we're covering the much-lauded period...
2023-09-091h 01Magellans at the MoviesJawsNature is full of dangerous animals. Bears, alligators, lions, and honey badgers are all vicious, aggressive predators that, if given the chance, will happily kill and eat a human who, despite being firmly atop the food chain, are comparatively fragile and much shorter on pointy bits than your average apex predator. Depending on your galeophobia levels, you may have noticed one animal that I didn’t list just a minute ago: sharks. That’s because sharks aren’t actually that interested in eating humans, and experts generally agree that the few shark attacks that do occur each year do so when a...
2023-09-0155 minMagellans at the MoviesCitizen KaneWe all know Hollywood legend Orson Welles from his groundbreaking role as Unicron in Transformers: The Movie, but did you know he actually directed and starred in a lesser known film called Citizen Kane in 1941? It’s true! This brave little movie toiling in the shadow of its younger brother may not have bright colors or cars that turn into robots, but that doesn’t mean it has nothing to say for itself. Citizen Kane has a Shakespearean rise and fall, then-innovative cinematography techniques, and a complex character study forming the backbone of its story, which is, you know, fine, if y...
2023-08-261h 02Magellans at the MoviesThe Batman (2022)One of the most impressive powers of good writing is its ability to convince you to take seriously that which you would find outrageous and laughable in real life. If, on the evening news, you saw someone dressed up like a bat and ran around the city at night beating up muggers, you’d probably have a good chuckle at the expense of the silly man in his silly costume, but watch that same quirky spectacle on the big screen and you may just find yourself enthralled. I’m talking, of course, about the objectively hilarious yet deadly serious legend of B...
2023-08-211h 08Magellans at the MoviesAce in the HoleFor as long as there has been news there have been those who would spread it. Modern journalism may trace its roots back to the advent of radio and television reporting, but the practice of informing people of the goings on in the world far predates media journalism. That’s right, when your crazy uncle leaves you a fifteen minute voicemail urging you to start digging a bunker in preparation for the illuminati’s forthcoming global conquest, he’s inheriting a rich and noble tradition that is thousands of years old and peopled with hundreds of diligent, respectable, hard-working public servan...
2023-08-121h 09Magellans at the MoviesThe Magellans on Their Least Favorite Films Any therapist worth their salt will tell you that it simply doesn’t do to dwell on the negative. Allowing your mental wheels to grind against the woes of the past will only serve to make you more bitter, more defensive, more paranoid, and ultimately less open to the many opportunities and triumphs of the now. Unless, of course, you’ve decided to mark every tenth episode of your unsuccessful film podcast with some kind of special episode, in which case you’re more than willing to shred your mental health by immersing yourself in the trauma tank that is bad...
2023-08-041h 00Magellans at the MoviesBarbie (ft Lydia Cowins)In the great pantheon of childhood toys there are few as ubiquitous, as culturally dominant, as wildly oversaturated as Barbie, the plastic approximation of a woman whose various outfits probably cost more than your entire closet. Being so intertwined with the tumultuous development of young girls, the brand is of course subject to great scrutiny. Barbie has been accused of being everything from an unrealistic, self-esteem destroying symbol of the male gaze to a Pied Piper of liberal values luring girls away from homemaking and into the workplace. That’s quite a lot of fuss to kick up about a to...
2023-07-281h 20Magellans at the MoviesOppenheimerScience! Best known for its supporting role in Bill Nye the Science Guy, science is the method by which we deepen our understanding of the world around us. It tells us what lies in the hearts of stars, the process by which our bodies are formed, and how to turn lead into gold probably. Science isn’t just about nature, it undergirds the world man has established. It has provided us with new materials for building, new medicines for living, and new frontiers for exploring. Most important of all, if you’re an enterprising young empire looking to make a na...
2023-07-281h 03Magellans at the MoviesLawrence of ArabiaSand. According to the modern Shakespeare it’s coarse, rough, irritating, and gets everywhere. Those of a similar mind should probably avoid the sun-blasted wastes of Arabia, where the dust is plentiful and the cleansing water rare. The only thing that could make these unforgiving deserts worse would be a web of train lines and bridges used by the Ottoman Empire to move supplies and troops to their various fronts in the first World War. We don’t have to worry about these days, however, thanks in part to the exploits of T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arab...
2023-07-2156 min2023-07-1456 minMagellans at the MoviesIndiana Jones and the Dial of DestinyIndiana Jones. He’s one of the most recognizable film characters of all time. The whip, the leather jacket, the revolver, and of course, the fedora, all combine to create the adventuring archaeologist's famous silhouette, but Indy’s appeal isn’t all superficial. He’s just a well written, charismatic, Nazi punching hero played with predictably smooth aplomb by Harrison Ford. The franchise didn’t exactly leave us on a high note in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but a brave group of filmmakers have been assembled to try to bring Indy back in the form of Indiana Jones and the Dial o...
2023-07-0756 minMagellans at the MoviesThe RaidEveryone has bad days from time to time, yes, even if you live in Australia (five bucks if you get that reference). Your car won’t start when you need to be at work early, the AC breaks on the hottest day of the year, or you accidentally switch lives with your evil long lost twin on your wedding day thus throwing your entire future into uncertainty as you try to convince the police that it’s a coincidence you look exactly like the drug kingpin they’ve been hunting for the past two years. The thing about these troublesome scenar...
2023-06-3053 minMagellans at the MoviesCasablancaAntiquities are a niche interest. People collect relics from the past to learn about how people once lived, how they occupied themselves, and the kinds of comforts they could enjoy. For many people, perusing gilded mirrors, dusty phonographs, and hideous cushions in a poorly lit store on your local town square constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, but some artifacts defy age and become entrenched in our daily lives for all time thanks to their enduring viability. The same is true of movies, especially when it comes to Casablanca, a 1942 film directed by Michael Curtiz and source for most of your...
2023-06-2355 minMagellans at the MoviesPride and PrejudiceIn the great pantheon of stuffy old late-19th century British authors (for which the middle school English teacher is the most devoted evangelist) perhaps no other member has had their works adapted more often or in more mediums than Jane Austen, chronicler and critic of polite society in England. Austen’s books have weighed down many an American student’s backpack, but we all know that it’s easier to just watch the movie and then cobble together your report from that, so if you’ve recently been assigned Pride and Prejudice, may we recommend director Joe Wright’s 2005 adaptation...
2023-06-1651 minMagellans at the MoviesDownfallIt’s the waning days of World War II and Nazi Germany is in a bad way. The Allies have squeezed them out of Africa and Asia and have begun pushing deep into Europe. Berlin is being slowly suffocated by the Red Army of the Soviet Union and the American and British forces are not far behind. A setting like that usually calls for a grand, explosive film about the heroic Allies delivering the final, decisive deathblow to the exhausted Axis, but director Oliver Hirschbiegel decided to take things in an altogether more unique direction with Downfall, his 2004 character study of...
2023-06-091h 08Magellans at the MoviesLa La LandWelcome to Los Angeles, the seat of the American film industry! Here you can learn about astronomy at the Griffith Observatory, see the Pacific from the L.A. Boardwalk, and walk across the greats of moviemaking on your way to the TLC Chinese Theater. And of course, no visit to the city of angels would be complete without a glimpse of the Hollywood sign, keeping its steady watch over the humble borough of tinsel town. L.A. has been mythologized almost as much as New York City, and as such has become a beacon for throngs of dreamers hoping for...
2023-06-021h 04Magellans at the MoviesNo Country for Old MenIt’s hard getting old. There’s the usual complaints: things like weakening bodies, fading memories, and the looming shadow of death, but getting old also means seeing things change. McDonald’s starts selling breakfast all day, they make the capes for LEGO figures out of cloth instead of paper, and everyone and their grandma wants you to scan a QR code to access their business even though I don’t have my phone on me and why can’t I just talk to a real human to sort out my order I just don’t get-wait, what was I talking abou...
2023-06-021h 02Magellans at the MoviesMagellans on the Movies That Don't Exist, but ShouldThe world is full of stories. Legends and larks abound across the globe, from Eastern European folk tales, to the plays of ancient Greece, to the ongoing storylines of MMOs like Destiny. Some of these tales are inevitably swallowed by the content machine of Hollywood and end up on the silver screen, but in a world as rich with fables as ours it is equally inevitable that a great many deserving stories slip through the cracks and remain chained to the page or the historical record or the PC. Today, then, Nathan and Elliot are sounding the call to the...
2023-05-271h 01Magellans at the MoviesThe Good, the Bad and the Ugly (ft A.J. Arnold)An epitome is a person or thing that is the perfect example of a particular quality or type. The nuclear bomb is the epitome of manmade destructive power, McDonald’s is the epitome of nothing, Magellans at the Movies is the epitome of movie podcasts, etc. Sometimes the classification of something as an epitome is more controversial than others, but when it comes to Westerns, few would argue against The Good the Bad and the Ugly’s status of the perfect example of this type of movie. Directed by master of the spaghetti western Sergio Leone in 1966, this three hour...
2023-05-191h 12Magellans at the MoviesShutter IslandEveryone feels a little crazy sometimes. Maybe the guy in front of you in line at Burger King seems to be dealing with the concept of a menu for the very first time. Maybe everyone is showering praise on a film you just don’t like. Or maybe you’re having vivid dreams of your dead wife interspliced with flashbacks to a traumatic experience liberating the Dachau death camp at the end of World War II. If so, you may seek treatment at a mental health institution, but, uh-oh, it’s only 1954 and that means standards of care at asylums are...
2023-05-1354 minMagellans at the MoviesCasino RoyaleJames Bond is undoubtedly one of the most iconic characters in all of fiction. Based on a series of novels by Ian Fleming, ever since the 60s our theaters have never been long without a sharply dressed, smooth-talking womanizer saving the world from all manner of eccentric criminals and sinister clandestine organizations. Despite being British through and through, James Bond’s appeal has spread to all corners of the world with his quirky gadgets, witty quips, and-how shall I put this?-strained relationship with what international subterfuge actually looks like. Every generation has had their own Bond, and his canon, to...
2023-05-051h 00Magellans at the MoviesThe Thing (1982)I think one of the benefits of living in a post-lockdown era is that our time cooped up indoors has made us more sensitive to the dangers of cabin fever and the limits of a familial or friendly bond. You may love your child more than breathing, but there’s nothing like constant proximity to make you realize just how irritating the way they eat truly is. Unfortunately for the folks living in The Thing, the 1982 science fiction horror classic (based on The Thing from Another World which in turn was based on the short story Who Goes There? by Jo...
2023-04-2851 minMagellans at the MoviesThe End of the TourIt’s a big, scary, lonely old world out there, ladies and gents, full of nasty and uncomfortable things like trigonometry, team building exercises, and pineapple pizza. If you’re looking for refuge from any of those things, you may find comfort in the pages of a book, but not necessarily anything by David Foster Wallace, the literary titan whose fiction and non-fiction work was frequently heavy of heart and long of wind. Morose as his style was, DFW remains a vaunted figure in the world of the written word, so it’s no surprise that, after his tragic and untime...
2023-04-2156 minMagellans at the MoviesJurassic ParkDinosaurs! Who doesn’t love dinosaurs? There’s just something inherently cool about the idea of an ancient, mysterious kingdom of animals preceding us on Earth before being obliterated in a geological instant, leaving only bones behind for scientists to piece together. Dinosaurs have long been a source of awe in children and adults alike, so it’s no wonder that the titanic lizards (Or maybe titanic birds? Have we sorted all that out yet?) have worked their way into a fair few sources of fiction over the years, with the most enduring and popular example being the dino action of Jur...
2023-04-141h 00Magellans at the MoviesBlack Mirror: Fifteen Million MeritsThe entertainment world is awash with dystopias these days, probably because the real world is as well. Crack open a book or sit down for a movie and there’s a non-zero chance you’ll be treated to a gray, sad main character inhabiting a gray, sad world meant to reflect some potentially harmful aspect of our gray, sad lives exaggerated to enhance danger but not so much that the similarities to present day life are unrecognizable. Entering such a saturated market means you’re bound to get at least a little splash of someone else’s work on your own, and...
2023-04-071h 04Magellans at the MoviesNight of the Living Dead (1968)It’s unlikely that any one movie, book, or play can lay legitimate claim to having single handedly invented any given genre. Storytelling has a long history that creators draw from consciously and unconsciously, but in the case of George Romero’s 1968 Night of the Living Dead, the argument for genre progenitor is probably as strong as it gets. The modern zombie movie, indeed, the figure of the modern zombie itself-as a decaying corpse returned to life with an insatiable hunger for human flesh-simply would not exist if not for this movie. Due to the film’s graphic violence (and then-r...
2023-03-3142 minMagellans at the MoviesScream VIScream is one of horror’s most celebrated and popular franchises. Acting as a kind of State of the Genre address for decades now, Scream intermittently returns from periods of quiet to deliver updates on the tropes and trends of scary movies, as well as the men and women who make them, all wrapped up in an enduring who-dun-it formula wherein a group of friends/suspects is whittled down by the endearingly clumsy Ghostface before an inevitable climactic reveal. Scream is reliably funny and fun, existing in a pleasant median between soft and hardcore horror, leavening brutal, bloody kills with wi...
2023-03-2452 minMagellans at the MoviesMagellans in front of the TVFrom Saturday morning cartoons to the evening news to science fiction classics, television programs offer up more information, entertainment, and validation than social media, with the caveat that you have to remain relatively stationary while your sense of self-worth is obliterated. TV shows can be self-contained and episodic, or essentially long-form movies telling much more in depth, expansive stories than a two hour film ever could. It’s no surprise, then, that those movie-loving ragamuffins over at Magellans at the Movies have watched a show or two in their time, determined as they are to sustain an awareness of po...
2023-03-171h 00Magellans at the MoviesSilenceSilence. According to tired parents, librarians, and corporations accused of using child labor, it’s golden, and you’ve probably agreed at one point or another in your life when the noise just gets overwhelming. For Christians facing torture and execution in Japan during the Tokugawa period, however, God’s apparent devotion to the sanctity of keeping a lid on it probably wore a little thin. How do you deal with unanswered prayers, then, or the creeping notion that God is indifferent in the face of human suffering? These are the questions at the heart of Silence, a 2016 film direct...
2023-03-1057 minMagellans at the MoviesThe MatrixReality. Most people don’t think about it very much, content to just live in it and let that be the end, but philosophers have been asking questions about reality and its nature since before Socrates was debating his nanny. Answers and theories abound, many of them fairly colorful, but none so colorful as the leather-bound, green-tinted, trench coat-bedecked, sunglasses-at-all-times-no-matter-the-fashion-consequences-or-relevant-light-level offered up by the Wachowski siblings in the 1999 sci-fi action movie The Matrix. The Matrix was, if you’ll pardon the pun, revolutionary at the time of its release, wowing audiences with a mind bending concept, incredible special effects, and...
2023-03-0354 minMagellans at the MoviesTop Gun: MaverickPlanes. They are big and fast and make loud noises and the ones used by the United States military can shoot things. This was the central conceit of Top Gun, a deeply 80s action movie about said big, fast, loud planes shooting things for your viewing pleasure and not much else. Despite a critical panning Top Gun became a mainstay in many a dad’s list of movies he would rattle off to demonstrate how far movies had fallen since his time at the theater thanks to its practical effects, bombastic action set pieces, and unashamedly ostentatious characters. Whatever it...
2023-02-2446 minMagellans at the MoviesThe Silence of the LambsThis week was Valentine’s Day, so it’s a week for thinking about those people who make your heart go pitter-patter. The people who give you butterflies every time you see them and get your pulse up into the hundreds. But wait, that isn’t your beloved, it’s the horrifying serial killer Hannibal the Cannibal and you aren’t a doe-eyed high school girl falling for Brock the football captain. No, you’re Clarice Starling and you’re a fired-up FBI agent-in-training hot in pursuit of the latest serial killer that’s terrorizing the nation. That’s right, this week t...
2023-02-1754 minMagellans at the MoviesOne Flew Over the Cuckoo's NestTreating mental health problems is a tricky project. The mind is a staggeringly complex structure, composed of layers of experiences and biology that, when overlaid on and enmeshed with each other, create systems that are extremely difficult to understand or even articulate, much less fix when something goes wrong. Consequently, treating the mind requires discipline, empathy, and years of hard work on both the doctor and the patient. That sounds boring, though, so for most of human history it was easier to just think people with mental illnesses were weird and/or cursed, and as we all know the...
2023-02-1045 minMagellans at the MoviesThe Hunt for Red OctoberIt’s the end of the second World War and things are looking up! The Nazis have been defeated and their leaders are on trial for unspeakable war crimes, China is recovering from the brutal Japanese invasion while the Japanese are entering a period of national introspection and revitalization, and the long conflict has made the world powers of America, the U.K., and the Soviet Union into fast friends. I foresee a long, sunny period of cultural exchange, peaceable de-militarization, and . . . oh. Oh, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. are discovering that sad fact of al...
2023-01-2746 minMagellans at the MoviesPulp FictionTar-an-tino-ism n. 1 a self-indulgent, protracted conversation, usually on a topic no one cares about, with copious amounts of swearing and racial epithets between two or more characters in a film directed by Quentin Tarantino. Tarantionisms are generally pretty popular, many would argue that they’re what make his movies so enjoyable, so it’s no surprise that Pulp Fiction, Tarantino’s 1994 classic, is frequently cited as his greatest achievement, drowning as it is in Tarantinoisms. Pulp Fiction is stylish and sleek in a very grimy kind of way, a throwback to the lurid grindhouse movies of yesteryear that has endear...
2023-01-2257 minMagellans at the MoviesThe Ballad of Buster ScruggsA lot of stuff happened in the American West from the late nineteenth century, unfortunately most of it was either pretty depressing or pretty tame. People took stuff that wasn’t theirs, but mostly from Native Americans rather than the local bank in daring heists, and you were more likely to die from disease than a tense quickdraw duel with the man that shot your pa. We’re not here to talk about historical accuracy, though, we’re here to celebrate the American West as it has been mythologized by the silver screen: a realm of hardened gunslingers with stubbl...
2023-01-1356 minMagellans at the MoviesPirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black PearlPirates. During their heyday in the 16th-19th century when the combined rises of mercantilism, imperialism, and naval technologies sparked an explosion of commercial, exploratory, and political sea-travel, piracy was synonymous with murder, thievery, and rape, but in one of history’s most impressive spin campaigns, the modern image of the historical pirate has had a thorough cleansing resulting in the romantic figure of the swashbuckling hero we know today. One of the principal examples of this curious instance of historical revisionism is Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, a 2003 blockbuster directed by Gore Verbinski th...
2023-01-0654 minMagellans at the MoviesThe Magellans 2022 Recap Spectacular!!!!!2022, what a great year it has been for people who haven’t been elected British Prime Minister or for people who haven’t bought Twitter. Really, it’s been a good year who did very little proactive. Unfortunately the Magellans have been very proactive this year, taking in a multitude of cinematic offerings and in this gigantic episode they will be bringing their thoughts on the superlatives of those offerings. But not content to merely survey the film landscape the brothers are also sharing their thoughts on their favorite books, video games, and television shows in this episode. So, get so...
2022-12-301h 24Magellans at the MoviesThe Muppet Christmas CarolChristmas, according to the song it’s the most wonderful time of the year. The holiday’s superlative status is derived from different factors according to different people. Maybe you’re really into cholesterol and enjoy stuffing your face. Maybe consumerism is more your thing, and you just love adding to your material wealth. Or, if you’re a pair of emotionally stunted young men from rural Iowa whose only mental escape from the 9-5 cubicle awaiting them was film, Christmas is probably most associated with Christmas movies. I exaggerate, of course, Christmas really is a special time of year, an...
2022-12-2342 minMagellans at the MoviesAll Quiet on the Western Front (2022)War, what is it good for? It’s a question that has hounded philosophers, humanitarians, politicians, Fallout protagonists, and more. Throughout history many people at some point in their life have paused to consider whether humanity’s most destructive method of conflict resolution might be more trouble than it’s worth, and some of those people, upon reaching a negative conclusion, have put pen to paper in the form of anti-war books, paintings, and movies. One of the most famous examples of this is All Quiet on the Western Front, a German novel about the first World War that quickl...
2022-12-1744 minMagellans at the MoviesSky HighWhen people think about the ways in which they would improve the high school experience, there are probably a wide range of elements they mark out as being particularly painful for all who experience it. Buildings with all the aesthetic flare and functional layout of a three-year-old’s pillow fort. State-approved lesson plans capable of reducing even the most dynamic, vibrant subjects into the educational material of a strong dose of valium. Lunch food derived from recipes written by homicidal maniacs who can’t even be bothered to pair your daily puddle of grease with fava beans or a nice...
2022-12-0952 minMagellans at the MoviesGlass Onion: A Knives Out MysteryWe’ve just been invited to an eccentric billionaire’s island home, and you know what that means: vacation time! Grab your trunks, your sunscreen, and ninety-nine bottles of beer to be appended to the wall and distributed communally one by one over the course of the trip because we are paradise bound! We’ll probably be drunk by the time we get there because that’s a lot of alcohol, but, after a greasy burger sees to your hangover, you should get out there and enjoy the island’s amenities! Gaze in wonder at the Bond villain-esque architecture (get it? ‘C...
2022-12-0254 minMagellans at the MoviesSpider-Man (2002)Spider-man. If you’re a member of today’s youth, upon whose childhood Disney’s film franchises could feasibly claim an executive producer credit, the name probably evokes images of Tom Holland. Spider-man in his most recent iteration was part of an established brand before he even thwipped his first web in Captain America: Civil War, and his further appearances in Avengers movies as well as his own trilogy of smash-hit films have only thrust the character to greater heights. For the cranky, miserable old men of the audience (hello, Magellans), however, Spider-man evokes a much different set of sights...
2022-11-2549 minMagellans at the MoviesEverything Everywhere All at OnceWhat if I told you that an infinite set of universes existed and was open to you as long as you’re willing to wear a funny earpiece and lick the nearest traditionally un-licked thing? “Fiddlesticks!” I hear you say. “Why, that kind of poppycock is fit only for speculative fiction!” You’re quite right, O reader of the outdated vernacular, but don’t be so quick to dismiss speculative fiction such as this. When you’re dealing with limitless realities, you of course have a limitless toybox from which to draw the most mind-boggling, jaw-dropping spectacle movie goers have ever seen...
2022-11-1857 minMagellans at the MoviesGodzilla (2014)Nature can be both awesome in its complexity and beauty and terrifying in its power and scale. The diseased raccoon sifting through your garbage can at midnight may appear like a gentle, majestic citizen of the forest, but fail to treat it with respect and reverence and you will know the wrath of nature. That’s enough about how I got my new rabies shots, though, let’s talk about Godzilla, the diseased raccoon of the monster movie world. Godzilla is a staple of the very medium of filmmaking, a franchise many decades old boasting dozens of movie installments in a...
2022-11-1150 minMagellans at the MoviesSpirited AwayBaths, you may know them as those mini-swimming pools you used to clean off in when you were young and had time for anything more luxurious than a five second rinse in the shower and a few spritzes of Axe body spray, but that’s just because your mindset isn’t cosmopolitan enough. Around the world, baths aren’t always individual experiences where you burn your skin off with whatever toxic waste they make store-brand shampoo out of, sometimes, as in the traditional Japanese sento, they’re group experiences meant to bring a community together. Combine that with the novel pr...
2022-11-0448 minMagellans at the MoviesThe ShiningEveryone hates winter, or at least everyone who has good opinions on seasons dislikes winter. And every writer has some amount of self-loathing going, otherwise they would pursue a more lucrative career such as working in masonry. And even further, it seems like everyone in the 80s hated their family, so when Jack Torrence took a job being stuck in a hotel with his family for the winter to attempt to write the next great American novel, maybe he should have known it would not go well for him. But it did go well for the camera crew documenting...
2022-10-2854 minMagellans at the MoviesThe Magellans on the Movie-MakersThe director. When it comes to the process of making movies there are few positions that hold the promise of greater acclaim for success or more ruthless criticism for failure. Rightly or wrongly, the director of a movie is sort of the face of the production. If an actor turns in a shoddy performance, we might say that they were given poor direction. If the cinematographer has apparently confused a dynamic, engaging visual style with the constant use of Dutch angles, we may assume that the pushy director is just really into feeling like he’s about to slide ou...
2022-10-211h 13Magellans at the MoviesHot RodYou know, it’s at times like these that I like to pause and reflect on what makes a good movie. Why do some legends of the silver screen leave us cheering with rapturous abandon, chattering excitedly to our seatmates about the experience we have just shared while others see us walking out of the theater in disgust, our delicious snacks abandoned and our outlook ever so slightly dimmed? I can’t answer that question for you, loyal listener, but I can say that, for me personally, the former category is unlikely to contain many overlong, jumbled, paper-thin “comedies” about yo...
2022-10-1451 minMagellans at the MoviesMementoI can hardly wait! Memento is unsurprisingly difficult to follow, but those that endure the initial confusion will be rewarded with a truly special movie about how reality is constructed through memory and perception all wrapped up in Nolan’s classically sharp writing and cast of immensely talented actors. If you know anything about Memento it is almost certainly its novel structure, told backwards from the perspective of a man with retrograde amnesia on a mission to avenge his murdered wife. Nowhere is this derision for the idea of the audience knowing what on earth is going on more pr...
2022-10-0759 minMagellans at the MoviesSteve Jobs (ft Will Spalding)A little plastic, a little glass, and a reason to rule all, that is myself- Marcus Aurelius if he was a computer. It is with these powerful words in mind that Steve Jobs (probably) set out to usher in the information age by providing every man, woman, and child with the means to access an increasingly intelligent, versatile series of electronic brains capable of processing and performing ever-more complex tasks in an ever-more complex and evolving digital universe. Was he pleased that the most complex task most people ask of their personal electronic brains was the occasional game of...
2022-09-3059 minMagellans at the MoviesThe Grand Budapest HotelGreetings! Welcome to Magellans at the Airport Travel Agency, I’ll be helping you for today. Looking to get away from it all but not sure where to go? Eager for a relaxing stay in a refined, high-class environment? Well let’s take a dive into this file here and see what we can’t scare up for you. Hmm, the Bates Motel? Nice place but the showers are a bit dodgy. Hotel Earle? Run by the Coen brothers but I think it burned down a while ago. The Overlook? I think they’re in the winter season and you DO N...
2022-09-2350 minMagellans at the MoviesSe7enMurder. Hopelessness. Darkness. The creeping, oppressive fear of life’s monstrous emptiness that spreads in the brain like a malignant tumor and drowns all light and joy in a grim tide of crushing resignation. Bleak stuff, yes? Maybe for silly sheeple like you and I who believe in things like hope, objective truths, and some kind of logically defensible moral structure, but for director David Fincher, nihilistic conceptions of humanity’s bottomless capacity for evil is the stuff of Christmas cards. Perusing through Fincher’s filmography may be like taking a tour of sadness in a museum curated by a man...
2022-09-1655 minMagellans at the MoviesFinding NemoFish, probably the most unwelcome thing to find on a pizza aside from maybe a heaping helping of crude oil. You probably don’t think that much about fish as you go through your daily life, and unless you’re a sociopathic dentist trafficking kidnapped fish to your equally unhinged niece to murder, they’re not terribly concerned with you either. This mutual indifference does a great disservice to both our species, however, because, as we see in the 2003 animated classic Finding Nemo directed by Andrew Stanton, fish actually have vibrant internal lives and a sprawling, complex culture! This week l...
2022-09-0947 minMagellans at the MoviesHell or High WaterSo, your mother has just died, leaving her estate in your care, but the rapacious bank with which she did business spent the last few years of her life squeezing pennies out of her pocket with sadistic glee. You’re a divorced dad who wants to do right by your children and leave them the family ranch that has just been found to be oil rich, but the bank is closing in, ready to foreclose and reclaim the house. What’s an enterprising young Texan like yourself to do? The answer, as any hard-jawed, steely-eyed man’s man knows, is sel...
2022-09-0244 minMagellans at the MoviesCaptain America: The Winter SoldierIf any franchise can be described as rivaling Star Wars’ world-dominating ubiquity, it’s probably Marvel. Beginning with a film charting a billionaire’s efforts to essentially make himself a terminator suit powered by a miraculous new energy source in a cave with nothing but scraps (a premise that, despite Jeff Bridges’ incredulity, comes off as hard-core realism compared to the more . . . imaginative plots of the later films), the MCU currently churns out content at a rate even Call of Duty finds excessive. Whatever your opinion on them, however, Marvel movies are extremely profitable and popular with critics and audience...
2022-08-2646 minMagellans at the MoviesGoodfellas (ft Jake Brend)Being a mobster can be a bit of a mixed bag. Sure you can have all the atrocious pinky rings, oily hair, and pressed suits you could ever wish for, but at what cost? According to Goodfellas, the 1990 mob movie following the life of actual former gangster Henry Hill directed by the master of mob movies Martin Scorcese, that cost is a Shakespearean fall from grace attended by all manner of marital strife, drug-induced paranoia, and overweight, balding dads telling you that you can just “fugeddabout” going on living if you cross them. Harrowing stuff. Still, like a middle scho...
2022-08-1957 minMagellans at the MoviesGetting to know the MagellansWell, dear reader, it seems we have arrived at the tenth installment of Magellans at the Movies, and the tenth bit of anything is always considered notable for reasons I’ve never really understood. I guess people just like the number ten because it’s usually the easy part of math problems. Anyways, over the past weeks you’ve listened to and come to love Magellans at the Movies for its biting criticism, adroit analysis, and euphoric celebrations of the best and worst of this medium. Or maybe you just appreciate the program’s utility as a mild sedative at bedti...
2022-08-1251 minMagellans at the MoviesThe Shawshank Redemption (ft Ben Neessen)Prison, it’s where you go when a simple disagreement between you and a particularly ornery spider monkey at the zoo gets more than a little heated and can no longer be constrained by a chain link fence. After the monkey’s tearful (but totally exaggerated) testimony moves the judge to throw the book at you, you’ll find yourself in a high-security hotel where early checkouts are frowned upon, your room is the size of an envelope, and the cleaning staff execute their duties with a work ethic that can only be described as unenthusiastic. It’s a bit like...
2022-08-0543 minMagellans at the MoviesNopeNope. What a versatile, efficient word it is. Truly the Swiss army knife of refusals, it can be employed to firmly shut down the unwanted advances of belligerent drunkards, casually indicate one’s satiated appetite when food is being ordered, or awkwardly turn back the weapons grade LSD you’ve just been handed at your nephew’s birthday party for some reason. We’re not here to talk about why I don’t visit uncle Horatio anymore, though, we’re here to talk about Nope the movie, a 2022 science fiction/horror flick directed by Jordan Peele, either the savior of modern ci...
2022-07-2946 minMagellans at the MoviesThe Dark KnightAllow me to impart a story to you, dear reader. Back when this program was getting started, I attended a conference in Dubai for exciting young creatives at the bleeding edge of innovation in the field of podcasts. After the guards realized my credentials were fake and threw me out the third floor window, I was wandering the city in despair when I stumbled upon a homeless man, sitting beneath a bridge in a pile of trash, but bearing a delighted grin on his face. “How can you be so happy sitting down here with all this garbage?” I aske...
2022-07-2253 minMagellans at the MoviesParasite“Life in South Korea can be hard,” says director Bong Joon Ho’s 2019 thriller/mystery/think piece/comedy/who-even-knows movie Parasite. “Its cities are crowded, its economic mobility limited, and its toilets prone to expressing their dissatisfaction with all the (admittedly unpleasant) ins and outs of daily toilet life by returning the contents it was meant to consign to oblivion right back into the homes of their cruel human masters.” “Well, Parasite,” you return, “you certainly describe a grim situation, but what does it mean? What can or should be done about it? What deeper point are you trying to get across? A...
2022-07-1646 minMagellans at the MoviesEighth GradeAh, middle school. That crucible of adolescent life straddling the divide between the sugary, innocent and carefree days of childhood and the more serious physical, social, and mental developments of high school (that other crucible of adolescent life). Herein boys and girls become . . . uh, slightly older boys and girls, and because human society has a truly alarming belief in the virtue of social bonds, it was long ago decided that the best way to shepherd all those mischievous scamps into the next phase of their life was to dump them all together in a big ol’ building and spend ei...
2022-07-0838 minMagellans at the MoviesJurassic World DominionJurassic World: Dominion, what a movie! Eye-popping special effects, likable characters, thought-provoking ideas about the relationship between man and nature, and complemented by impeccable scenes of tension that proudly take their place among the best feats cinema has to offer! Oh, wait, no I’m thinking of Jurassic Park. Jurassic World: Dominion is Jurassic Park’s second cousin, bitterly toiling away in the shadow of its more popular relative. Dominion is the 2022 conclusion to the Jurassic World trilogy, and even the most romantic of Romeos would struggle to call parting with these movies “such sweet sorrow”. In this case parting...
2022-07-0134 minMagellans at the MoviesStar Wars: A New Hope“St-Star Wars?” I hear you say with befuddlement, “What a silly notion, stars are spherical cosmic bodies composed mainly of gasses, how could they be capable of launching large-scale combat operations against each other?” Ah, my unrealistically out of touch hypothetical reader, allow the Magalhães brothers to enlighten you in today’s exciting new episode of Magellans at the Movies! Truly no other movie can claim to be as ubiquitous as George Lucas’s career defining 1977 space opera. Every set, weapon, ship, character, sound effect and piece of music is iconic, and today, in what is the reviewer’s equivalent of...
2022-06-2434 minMagellans at the Movies12 Angry MenJury duty? Aw, man! I hate jury duty! So begins any number of tired standup routines delivered to tens of disinterested audience members in many a middle school talent show, 2000s sitcom, or grungy back room comedy club that doubles as a meeting place for the local AA chapter, but the 1957 classic courtroom drama 12 Angry Men is here to remind us that doing one’s civic duty is more than just a way to kill a couple weeks watching slow-mo replays of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s marriage imploding, it can often be a matter of life and deat...
2022-06-1131 minMagellans at the MoviesSaving Private RyanFor the inaugural episode of the podcast Nathan and Elliot watched the classic Spielberg war film Saving Private Ryan. They discuss its commentary on war and how they felt it achieved its goals, with some help from some random review Elliot found on the internet.
2022-06-0535 min