You’d think the joint forces of James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez would produce an unstoppable box office juggernaut - a franchise that would capture the world’s imagination for decades… but that didn’t turn out to be the case with ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL. Its devoted audience is still holding out hope for a sequel, and who knows, we may get one someday, when Cameron tires of Pandora. But until then, all we can do is try to figure out what went wrong. Let’s do that in this Real Talk segment!

From James Cameron, they said. From the mind behind Titanic and Avatar, they said. But Jimmy C couldn’t even be bothered to let the actual director of ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL, Robert Rodriguez, play with the kind of tech that makes Cameron flicks so visually impressive. So poor Alita had to settle for a direct-to-video Temu Pixar aesthetic and relied on the passionate fanbase from its manga origins to crawl to a fresh Tomatometer score. Listen to Alex & Julio as they wonder when Christoph Waltz became a cuddly old man!

The thirteenth installment of Fresh Immigrants, Rotten Fascists takes us to Chile, where infamous dictator Augusto Pinochet is revealed to be a vampire. Just another off-kilter biopic from Pablo Larrain, the man who brought us Jackie, Spencer, and now… EL CONDE.

Thank you for checking this new project out, whether you are a long-time Contrarians fan or someone who’s just trying to listen to people talking positively about immigrants and negatively about fascism. If you have any recommendations for future entries in the series, let us know!

Is the world big enough for standard Hollywood blockbuster adaptations of Homer’s work and artsier, brainier takes on the fall of Troy? Can Wolfgang Petersen’s TROY and Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey co-exist? This super-sized Real Talk segment explores our feelings about Petersen’s epic AND also features a chat about Nolan’s smash-hit!

Odyssey-mania has taken over the world, and it hurts to see so many people have forgotten its unofficial 2004 prequel, TROY. Sure, it wasn’t a big hit with critics back then, but can we not appreciate the lost art of hot men trying to kill each other today? While Nolan’s movie is all about Odysseus running away from fights, Wolfgang Petersen’s adaptation of The Iliad is about Brad Pitt kicking butt and taking names. Listen to Alex & Julio geek out the way Homer intended!

Our Bedroom to Box Office journey has been a bit of a wild ride so of course the final stop would be Orson Welles’ long lost movie. The adult film industry connection was already discussed in a bonus interview we dropped right before this episode (check it out, lots of fun) but there is a lot more to unpack about THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND. For example: did we actually like it? Listen to this Real Talk segment to find out!

Man, we cut Orson Welles way too much slack. The guy makes Citizen Kane at the beginning of his career, then he gets to coast for the rest of his life - and posthumously too! THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND, a Welles’ joint he didn’t even get to finish, was received with pure adoration by critics even though it’s basically just a pretentious improv session from Orson and his buddies. Listen to Alex & Julio as they try to focus on the unexpected return of Peter Bogdanovich to the main feed, and close the Bedroom to Box Office Summer Event in style!

Gary Graver was the cinematographer on Orson Welles’ final feature film, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND. As a warm-up to our upcoming episode giving that movie the Contrarians Treatment, here’s a special treat for all of you: an interview with Adam Graver, one of Gary’s nephews.

And yes, Gary Graver is the final adult movie industry connection in our Bedroom to Box Office Summer Event!

The twelfth installment of Fresh Immigrants, Rotten Fascists takes us all the way to Honduras for a complicated road trip toward the Mexico/US border - all courtesy of Cary Fukunaga, who would go on to depict another harrowing journey in Beasts of No Nation. This is his writing/directing debut, a chase movie called SIN NOMBRE.

Thank you for checking this new project out, whether you are a long-time Contrarians fan or someone who’s just trying to listen to people talking positively about immigrants and negatively about fascism. If you have any recommendations for future entries in the series, let us know!

We love PTA here at Contrarians HQ. This has been documented all throughout our podcasting journey. We may disagree on specific ranking placement for most of his movies, but we agree that they’re all great… until now? Will INHERENT VICE split Alex and Julio apart? And let’s not forget this is still part of our Bedroom to Box Office Summer Event, so who’s the secret adult movie star? The answers lie within this Real Talk segment!