Bonus! - The Guard

There’s no middle ground with movies about Irish people, it’d seem. You either get mushy sentimental claptrap like Sing Street, or the filthiest, most offensive depiction of Irishmen you can think of, like THE GUARD. Listen to Alex & Julio as they discuss the horrors found in Martin McDonagh’s feature film debut: Racism! Debauchery! Generic uses of Mark Strong and Ser Davos Seaworth! And cheap attempts at making Brendan Gleeson sympathetic by giving him an ailing mother!

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148 - The Happytime Murders

Let’s be real: the noir genre has been dead for decades. One of the main reasons why is that audiences refuse to embrace any imaginative reinventions of the old hard-boiled detective stories - regardless of their quality. Such was the fate of Brian Henson’s wonderfully subversive THE HAPPYTIME MURDERS, which committed the deadly sin of having puppets be sexual and deeply flawed in puritan America. Listen to Alex & Julio as they try to rescue Henson’s misunderstood masterpiece from obscurity in the latest installment of The Muppathon!

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147 - The Muppets Take Manhattan

The Muppathon continues as Kermit and his friends… graduate college??? Come on, now. How much can we let Jim Henson get away with just because it was The 80s? Listen to Alex & Julio as they discuss THE MUPPETS TAKE MANHATTAN - also known as “that 90-minute commercial for the Muppet Babies TV show”. Manipulative Broadway tunes! Outdated celebrity cameos! A disappointing embrace of marriage as an institution! It’s everything a Muppet fan inexplicably wants!

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Bonus! - Avatar

We’re wrapping up the year the same way we started it: with an overblown, overrated James Cameron mega-blockbuster - courtesy of Patron Jamie Russell. Listen to Alex & Julio give AVATAR the Contrarians Treatment and welcome Charismatic Enigma Sam Worthington back on the show! Also: what did Giovanni Ribisi do to get stuck with all that exposition? Could you tell Sigourney Weaver wanted to drop an F-bomb in every scene? And why does Jimmy-C get a pass when it comes to rewriting history? All this, and more… IN 3D!!!!

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146 - The Muppets' Wizard of Oz

The second stop in the Muppathon is the Muppet movie with the worst Tomatometer score: THE MUPPETS’ WIZARD OF OZ! But why were critics so hard on this reimagining of the classic story? Were they not able to appreciate the brilliance of Quentin Tarantino’s cameo? Was it too much for them to see Gonzo acknowledge his nipples? Did Ashanti make them realize how unhip they were? Listen to Alex & Julio as they defend this unfairly maligned trip down the yellow brick road!

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145 - The Muppet Movie

The Muppathon begins with the only appropriate start: the 1979 film that fooled critics into believing TV puppets deserved to be movie stars. And even if you haven’t seen THE MUPPET MOVIE, you’d be able to guess what happens in it because the franchise has been playing variations on this gimmicky type of road trip for decades. Listen to Alex & Julio as they try to figure out which outdated cameo is the most obscure, wonder about Gonzo’s infatuation with chickens, and overall remain unimpressed by Kermit’s alleged wisdom.

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Bonus! - Dead Alive (Braindead)

Do you like blood? Do you really like blood? Well, then DEAD ALIVE might be just what the doctor ordered for you. The rest of us, on the other hand, will look the other way and wonder how is it that the man behind this mindless gorefest ended up helming one of the most successful franchises in the world (yeah, the one with the ring). Listen to Alex and Julio as they take a trip back to Peter Jackson’s humble beginnings and uncover a whole lot of guts and not a whole lot of anything else!

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144 - Doctor Who: The Movie

Doctor Who? More like Doctor Who Doesn’t Like This Movie? Listen to Alex & Julio as they finally fulfill a promise made almost two years ago, and give The Contrarians Treatment to a controversial entry in a franchise they know next to nothing about! Is there anything more charming than 90s commercial breaks? Why was there such a backlash to a hunky Doctor? And can we all agree that Eric Roberts is a national treasure?

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143 - Mad Max: Fury Road

Y’all are too easy to impress. Sure, MAD MAX: FURY ROAD is a fine action flick. But best motion picture of the year? One of the GOATs? Let’s all take a breath. We don’t even get a Mel Gibson cameo here! Thus, Alex & Julio start their eighth year of podcasting by welcoming David, Irena, and Rhys from the Franchise Killer podcast, to join them in bringing the fourth Max Max film down a few notches. Should we really be praising George Miller for not having the courage to simply make a Furiousa movie instead of smuggling her inside an almost-dead franchise?

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Bonus! - The 2021 Embries

Happy birthday to us! We’ve been doing this podcasting thing for seven years, and loyal listeners know we like to celebrate by handing out our very own brand of awards. Join Alex & Julio as they recap the most recent year in Contrarians History and celebrate the good, the bad, and the sexy stuff they covered since the last Embries ceremony!

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