180 Return to Oz

Matt and Mark's "For the Kids" movie review marathon continues this week with our take on the 1985 box office misfire "Return to Oz". Lacking in the thematic elements of its uber-famous predecessor, it does expand the Oz universe, drinking from the well of the original Baum children's novels. However, it's creep factor, complete with ruined Yellow Brick Road, Munchkin Holocaust, and Chernobyl-style post apocalypse of the once great Emerald City could really only be redeemed by another tranch of ten or so Disney princess movies. So, do an Elton John and say "goodbye Yellow Brick Road", or do a Bowie, and "put on your red shoes and dance the blues."

Download: 180 Return to Oz

179 Ponyo

Matt and Mark's "For the Kids..." movie review marathon continues with the beloved Miyazaki's last film, Ponyo. A film that is beautiful to watch, it teases out what is best in anime: the ability to create emotion with the warmth of hand drawn animation. Matt and Mark contrast the style with out current CGI fair and marvel at the imagery. Pivoting on themes of separation, Ponyo welcomes all ages and entertains all. If you don't enjoy Ponyo, Mark and Matt are pretty sure you must be dead behind the eyes and a cold-hearted psychopath.

Download: 179 Ponyo

178 Labyrinth

Kicking off the "For the Kids..." movie review marathon, we start with the 1986 Henson classic Labyrinth. A little weary from our hard-partying weekend, Matt and Mark ramble a bit with our review as we attempt to bond with our inner child. Matt gets nostalgic for his adolescent Jennifer Connelly crush while Mark expresses his disappointment in the film's cliched violent climax and odd mix of tone. But what ties this movie together? Like a cat from Japan, well hung with a snow white tan... Bowie... Bowie in all his scrotal glory.

Download: 178 Labyrinth

177 Beyond the Black Rainbow

Taking the better parts of earlier films (and perhaps lesser films), Director Cosmatos manages to conjure the atmospheric and menacing Beyond the Black Rainbow. Taking New Age psychedelic notions of transcendence to their limits, the denizens of the Arboria institute attempt enlightenment with a concoction of drugs and a black pool of sensory goo. Half liking/half hating the film, Matt derides its cliched and uncharacteristic end, while Mark is more sympathetic. Anyway, give it a watch and dare to hit the mother lode!

Download: 177 Beyond the Black Rainbow

176 Fantastic Planet

An animated French film from 1973, this week Matt and Mark review the cultish Fantastic Planet (aka The Savage Planet). A beautifully animated film, it questions humanity's preeminent position in the universe by depicting us as lesser things, specifically vermin. As the playthings and pests of greater aliens, humans (or Omes as depicted in the film) face a type of indifference which can only be described as cruelty. But just like the bugs or bacteria of our current Post-Halocene epoch, the worm eventually turns, and the meek inherit the Earth, or perhaps the Fantastic Planet.

Download: 176 Fantastic Planet 

175 Angel Heart

Mark continues taking listener requests. This week on the Cult we review the Mickey-in-his-prime Angel Heart, released in 1987. A neo-noir Southern Gothic of sorts, it follows the gumshoe detective formula until it doesn't. The end reveal, a function of the fantastic, is more style over substance. But for whatever reason, it doesn't seem to matter. Firing on all cylinders, Angel Heart is beautifully wrought film with a dose of Rourke authenticity that is hard to replicate. Hail Satan!

Download: 175 Angel Heart

174 2001: A Space Odyssey

Mopping up the Kubrik, Matt and Mark finally get around to reviewing the flawed masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. A film broken up into four vignettes, we go about reviewing it as such. Despite all the big themes of human evolution and questions of mankind's existential crisis in the universe, what 2001 gets right is humanity's relationship with the tools it has created, and how we are now at the whims of those tools, good, bad, and indifferent. So open up the pod bay doors and set the controls for the heart of the sun (cue Pink Floyd... now!).

Download: 174 2001 A Space Odyssey