Podcast: Play in new window

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Sports fans, I’m not going to lie to you: thins get real blue and real weird real fast in this on. If this pod had a rating, it’d be a hard R. It’s also an episode that swings wildly between the twin poles of “tangential bullshit” (left-of-centre fetishes and 90s rom-coms where one of the leads would later come out as gay) and “actual movie stuff” (a discussion how 2001 aged so well, two very different reads on Blade Runner 2049). In short, another classic episode!

CWs for kink, sexual assault, racism, and probably some other stuff, but those are the three main ones.

This week’s matchups:
2001: A Space Odyssey v. Finding Nemo
The Intouchables vs. Blade Runner 2049

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See the bracket [SPOILERS AHEAD]
Drop us a line: middlebrowmadness@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter: @middlebrowpod
Follow Isabelle on Twitter: @spacejamfan
Follow Derek on Twitter: @derek_g

Podcast: Play in new window

Subscribe: Android | Google Podcasts | RSS

We’re back, sports fans, and we’re ringing in the new year! Only we don’t make reference to this fact at all, since we recorded this some time ago. Our intrepid hosts experience both sides of the quality coin in this one, from baffling slogs to baffling successes. There’s also talk of Baz Luhrmann and chili recipes. In other words, another classic episode!

CW for reference to sexual violence, racialized violence, other kinds of violence, police brutality, Nazis, and general unpleasantness.

This week’s matchups:
Downfall v. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Fight Club v. The Handmaiden

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Sheet Pan Vegetarian Summer Bowl (via Self)

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See the bracket [SPOILERS AHEAD]
Drop us a line: middlebrowmadness@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter: @middlebrowpod
Follow Isabelle on Twitter: @spacejamfan
Follow Derek on Twitter: @derek_g

Podcast: Play in new window

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Our march towards the championship match chugs on, sports fans! Our intrepid hosts cover everything you’ve come to expect from the show: Sex! Metagaming! Personality quizzes! They also go deep on three of the funnest films they’ve covered so far on the pod, and, uh… one that is decidedly less fun. We’ll let you figure out which ones are which.

This week’s matchups:
North by Northwest v. Life of Brian
Grave of the Fireflies v. Rush

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See the bracket [SPOILERS AHEAD]
Drop us a line: middlebrowmadness@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter: @middlebrowpod
Follow Isabelle on Twitter: @spacejamfan
Follow Derek on Twitter: @derek_g

Podcast: Play in new window

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It’s time to get into the spirit of giving, sports fans! Isabelle gives Derek a gift! The Middlebrow Madness will give you a bonus episode! We give some searing hot takes on some beloved classics! And best of all question mark?, we give you CWs for racism, CSA, and transphobia. It’s another classic episode of the best independent bracket-based film criticism show in the known universe.

This week’s matchups:
Scarface v. V for Vendetta
The Silence of the Lambs v. The Wizard of Oz

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Oh shit, it’s show notes, baby!

Body Talk: Conversations on Transgender Cinema with Caden Gardner — Curtsies and Hand Grenades

“Hard Time for the Hardcore” by Nick Pinkerton — The Baffler

Listener Hersh’s black bean and seitan rice recipe

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See the bracket [SPOILERS AHEAD]
Drop us a line: middlebrowmadness@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter: @middlebrowpod
Follow Isabelle on Twitter: @spacejamfan
Follow Derek on Twitter: @derek_g

Podcast: Play in new window

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Break time is over, sports fans! We actually talk a lot about music at the top of this one. (Tangents? On a podcast?! My word!) But fear not, we resume our dizzying climb to the top of the bracket in short order. This time around, we talk about the limitations of charm, the value of human experiences, and our relationship with good ol’ QT. We also field some viewer mail for good measure.

This week’s matchups:

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind v. Kill Bill Vol. 1
Terminator 2: Judgment Day v. Catch Me If You Can

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See the bracket [SPOILERS AHEAD]
Drop us a line: middlebrowmadness@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter: @middlebrowpod
Follow Isabelle on Twitter: @spacejamfan
Follow Derek on Twitter: @derek_g

Podcast: Play in new window

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Sports fans! We are 25% of the way up the bracket, and so we’re planting a marker and taking stock of how far we’ve come. We talk about out picks, mourn the fallen, pick some superlatives, and we answer some 100% genuine grain-fed grade-A viewer mail. Stray topics include the films of S. Craig Zahler, cinematic crushes, and the fine art of metagaming.

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See the bracket [SPOILERS AHEAD]
Drop us a line: middlebrowmadness@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter: @middlebrowpod
Follow Isabelle on Twitter: @spacejamfan
Follow Derek on Twitter: @derek_g

Podcast: Play in new window

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We’re back (a dinosaur’s story), and we come bearing the gifts of CWs for sexual assault, rape, and CSA! But also, we’re talking about some great movies, including one of those slippery, queasy Awesome Movies Directed By a Reprehensible Person, and one movie that’s kind of a dud. Also, now we’re 25% of the way done with the first round, hooray!

Oh yeah, and just so we don’t get any emails or tweets about it: Isabelle does in fact mean to say Sam Spade (the famous fictional detective), and not Sam Malone (Ted Danson’s character on Cheers). To be fair, “Sam Malone” would be a good name for a noir gumshoe.

This week’s matchups:
The Great Escape v. Chinatown
The Godfather Part II v. Perfect Blue

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See the bracket [SPOILERS AHEAD]
Drop us a line: middlebrowmadness@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter: @middlebrowpod
Follow Isabelle on Twitter: @spacejamfan
Follow Derek on Twitter: @derek_g

Podcast: Play in new window

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We’re back on the bracket beat, sports fans, and we’re asking the tough questions! Does The Dark Knight Rises have a coherent ideology? What is the “normie” Andrei Tarkovsky movie? What’s the deep ecology read on WALL-E? Why were the 90s such a fecund period for stories about the falseness of reality? We answer all of these questions, and several others, over the course of the show.

This week’s matchups:
The Dark Knight Rises v. Andrei Rublev
WALL-E v. The Truman Show

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See the bracket [SPOILERS AHEAD]
Drop us a line: middlebrowmadness@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter: @middlebrowpod
Follow Isabelle on Twitter: @spacejamfan
Follow Derek on Twitter: @derek_g

Podcast: Play in new window

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | RSS

A little late but no less great! That’s right, sports fans, we’re back with another classic episode of the pod, where we reaffirm our positions as heads of the Newman/Redford Booster Club, fawn over a certain pair of directorial brothers, and marvel at a film that smiles in the face of a cruel, uncaring world. Oh, and we should note, one of these movies did not age well. How badly did it age? Well, badly enough that our discussion merits big ol’ content warning for CSA. It ain’t all roses in this one, but there are great discussions all around. Also fuck horses.

This week’s matchups:
The Sting vs. No Country for Old Men
Leon: The Professional v. Nights of Cabiria

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See the bracket [SPOILERS AHEAD]
Drop us a line: middlebrowmadness@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter: @middlebrowpod
Follow Isabelle on Twitter: @spacejamfan
Follow Derek on Twitter: @derek_g