Here’s our season three finale where we, alongside special guests Tracy Hutchings and CC Lilford, discuss the best and worst films, best and worst TV shows, top film discoveries, best internet video essays and best albums we saw and heard in 2023!
Thank you once again for the listens, likes, loves, shares and comments, and here’s to another year of great video essays, music, movies and TV!
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE
In this three-part season finale, Matthew, Ricardo, Tracy, CC and Randerson share their picks for Best Albums, Best TV Shows, Worst Movies and Best Movies of 2022!
Thank you all for the listens, likes, loves, shares and comments, and here’s to another year of great music, movies and TV!
(Timestamps and lists are provided in the YouTube descriptions)
BEST TV SHOWS & WORST MOVIES OF 2022:
TOP FILMS & FILM DISCOVERIES OF 2022:
Before or after you ring in the New Year, check out the four-part Season 1 finale of the BBB RADIO podcast (YouTube and Anchor links – three parts in this case – provided below) where Ricardo Medina, Randerson “Crash” Beckett, CC Lilford, Tracy Hutchings and I list our favourite albums, TV shows and movies of 2021, in addition to the worst TV shows and movies we suffered through this year. Enjoy, thank you so much for the support over this turbulent year, and Happy 2022!
LISTEN ON ANCHOR HERE
LISTEN ON ANCHOR HERE
LISTEN ON ANCHOR HERE
For the second crossover episode of BBB Radio and Retrospect Reviews, Ricardo and I team up with fellow collaborators Tracy Hutchings and CC Lilford to talk about the second season of the hit animated comedy series “Star Trek: Lower Decks”, major highlights from this year’s DC Fandome, spoiler-free reviews of Marvel Studios’ “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”, “Halloween Kills”, the follow-up to 2018’s “Halloween” and the fifth and final Daniel Craig Bond film “No Time to Die”, and conclude my Best and Worst of the Bonds special with our ranking of the theme songs for Craig’s Bond films and our picks for Best and Worst Craig Bond film.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE
In the first crossover episode of BBB Radio and Retrospect Reviews, Ricardo and I team up with fellow collaborators Tracy Hutchings, CC Lilford and Alice Oscura to review the new DC animated feature “Injustice” and share our picks for the best and worst film in the Sean Connery, Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan series of James Bond films, in addition to paying tribute to the George Lazenby and Timothy Dalton entries in the James Bond franchise and our favourite Bond themes.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE
In Part 1 of the season 6 finale of the Beers, Beats & Bailey podcast, Ricardo Medina, Sommerleigh Pollonais, CC Lilford, Alice Oscura, Tracy Hutchings and yours truly count down our favourite TV shows, least favourite movies and film disappointments 2020 offered us (NOT LIMITED TO CONTENT WE VIEWED IN 2020, MIND YOU), in addition to movies that were unfortunately delayed due to the pandemic.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE
In Part 2 of the season 6 finale of the Beers, Beats & Bailey podcast, Ricardo Medina, Sommerleigh Pollonais, CC Lilford, Alice Oscura, Tracy Hutchings and yours truly share our picks of the best movies – along with guilty pleasures, horror movies and a bit of TV – we saw this year (NOT LIMITED TO CONTENT WE VIEWED IN 2020, MIND YOU).
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE
In the penultimate episode of Season 6 of the Beers, Beats & Bailey podcast, I share my list of top favourite hip hop projects I checked out in 2020, one that truly pissed me off, some honourable mentions and one dishonourable mention that kinda sorta pissed me off! Afterwards, Ricardo and I share our thoughts on the romantic drama “Sylvie’s Love”, the Disney/Pixar fantasy-comedy “Soul” and the highly-anticipated superhero film “Wonder Woman 1984”.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE
Continuing my long-overdue posting of YouTube-based excerpts and episodes of the BBB podcast, here’s the playlist for the fifth season, where you’ll find the most memorable reviews from each episode recorded in 2019. Highlights include the spoiler reviews of “Glass” and “Joker”, “Nostalgia Critic’s The Wall: A Cautionary Tale” and “THE RISE OF SKYWALKER (SPOILER REVIEW) – and other things post-“The Force Awakens” Star Wars”.
As always, if you want to hear the episodes in full, you can find the Beers, Beats & Bailey podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Castbox and Breaker. Enjoy!
For the past couple years on this blog, I’ve been sharing my picks for 21 of the 24 categories of the Academy Awards (I always leave out Best Live Action Short, Best Animated Short and Best Short Documentary due to my inability to access any of these films online). Fortunately for the both of you, this year will be no different! Yessir, lady and gent, for my first post of 2016, I’ll be sharing my picks for the 2016 Academy Awards. Similar to what I did in 2014 and 2015, I’ll be including my “runner-up” (i.e. nominee that I think has a huge chance of snatching the Oscar from the respective “pick”). And similar to 2015, this post is yet another excuse for me to post pictures (with a music video added into the mix to liven things up) instead of actually writing my thoughts on each and every nominee mentioned here.
And in case you were wondering….YES, I have seen all the movies on this list…..Oh wait. No. Actually there’s ONE film on the list that I have NOT seen (GASP!) but I’ll get to that later. Anyhoo, without further ado, sit back, relax, have your favourite torrent client and web search engine ready (You goddamn pirate, you!), and enjoy my Oscar picks of 2016. Enjoy!
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: “Bridge of Spies”
Runner-up: “Ex Machina”
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: “The Martian”
Runner-up: “The Big Short”
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS, BEST SOUND MIXING & BEST SOUND EDITING:
“Mad Max: Fury Road”
Runner-up for Visual Effects: “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”
Runner-up for Sound Mixing & Sound Editing: “The Revenant”
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN: “Mad Max: Fury Road”
Runner-up: “The Danish Girl”
BEST ORIGINAL SONG: “Earned It” – (that song from) “Fifty Shades of Grey”.
For a movie that promised to rise to the occasion, but wound up being limp (Ha! See what I did there??), we did get a marginally decent (in my opinion) song from The Weeknd (which won a Grammy for Best R&B Performance last week). And for better or worse, “Earned It” is the only thing worth remembering from “Fifty Shades of Bullshit”- which is saying a fucking lot!
Anyhoo, MUSIC VIDEO TIME!!!
Runner-up: “Writing’s On The Wall” – (that song from) “Spectre”
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: “The Hateful Eight”
Runner-up: “Bridge of Spies”
BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING, or Why is this still a category? I mean, who gives a shit about best mascara and wigs?! Just saying, yo:
“Mad Max: Fury Road” (if I had to pick)
Runner-up: “The Revenant”
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: “Son of Saul”.
Now this is the film I have not seen, simply because I couldn’t find a screener for it, let alone a theater that ran the movie, prior to the publishing of this blogpost. However, based on the TON of praise this Hungarian war drama received after its premiere at Cannes last year (if anything else), “Son of Saul” has a ridiculously huge chance of taking the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. If not, then I think my runner-up pick – which I did see and do recommend you see – will take home the award.
Runner-up: “Mustang”
BEST FILM EDITING: “The Revenant”
Runner-up: “The Big Short”
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: “The Look of Silence”. While his 2012 film “The Act of Killing” (which was my pick for Best Documentary Feature back in 2013, and still remains one of the most harrowing movies I’ve ever seen) hit me repeatedly in the gut, Joshua Oppenheimer’s compelling, oftentimes solemn and equally powerful follow-up “The Look of Silence” hit me in the heart. For years, documentary features with grim subject matter have been nominated by the Academy, but unfortunately, they’ve never won. And I have a strong feeling that this movie – which is actually more accessible than “The Act of Killing” – will lose to my runner-up pick. In any case, I’m still rooting for “The Look of Silence” to win on Sunday, and regardless of whether it wins or not, this is still a film that’s DEFINITELY worth seeing!
Runner-up: “Amy”
BEST COSTUME DESIGN: “Mad Max: Fury Road”
Runner-up: “The Revenant”
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: “The Revenant”
Runner-up: “Sicario”. It’s Roger Deakins vs. Emmanuel Lubeski for the World Heavyweight Championship…..OF CINEMATOGRAPHY!!
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE: “Inside Out”
Runner-up: There is no runner-up. “Inside Out” WILL win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature! “Animalisa”, “Boy meets World”, “Marnie wasn’t There” and “Shaun the Shit” ain’t got a keyframe on Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust. Oh, and Riley, because without her, these emotions wouldn’t exist. Then again, they could’ve been in someone else’s head instead of Riley’s.
Wait, what was I talking about again? Oh, right! Oscars! Moving along…..
BEST DIRECTOR: Alejandro González Iñárritu – “The Revenant”. Yes, I’m rooting for the man who won Best Director LAST YEAR for the Best Picture winner “Birdman”. Winning the Best Director Oscar TWO YEARS in a row will be a hard pill to swallow for some people, but you have to admit, Iñárritu and his team outdid themselves with “The Revenant”. And that deserves credit.
Runner-up: George Miller – “Mad Max: Fury Road”. If I could wish on a shooting star, I’d wish that a 70-year-old filmmaker who went out of his way to make one of the most unabashedly BADASS movies ever created (and my pick for Best Movie of 2015, in case you were wondering) could win such a prestigious award. But alas, a wish is only a wish. *SIGH*
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
‘Mama Bear’ – “The Revenant”
I’m just playing! My real pick is…
Kate Winslet – “Steve Jobs”. Anyone who can put up with Steve Jobs’ (Michael Fassbender) narcissism, and put him in his place when necessary, deserves an Oscar in my book!
Runner-up: Rooney Mara – “Carol”
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – Sylvester Stallone – “Creed”
Runner-up: Once again, THERE IS NO RUNNER-UP! This is Stallone’s award! He is going to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and no one….and I mean no one….not even Batman (Christian Bale), Bane (Tom Hardy), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and that guy (Mark Rylance) who played the villain in that movie with Sean Penn…. “The Gunman”, I think it’s called….is going to stop him! And if he doesn’t win, then that means we get another “Expendables” movie. Do you want another “Expendables” movie?? No, you don’t, folks. No, you don’t.
BEST ACTRESS – Cate Blanchett – “Carol”
Runner-up: Brie Larson – “Room”
BEST ACTOR: Leonardo DiCaprio – “The Revenant”. No Best Actor nominee this year had people rooting for him to win more than Mr. Jack Dawson himself, Leo DiCaprio. And yes, I am one of theoe people. He’s been putting out great roles for years, but with “The Revenant”, he literally pushed himself physically and emotionally to the limit. Call it overrated (“Oh, all he just did was groan and grunt for two hours. Any other actor coulda done that shit. He was way better in Romeo + Juliet ‘cuz he was talking……Shakespearese or whatever you call that language”) but his performance in this movie is nothing short of incredible. What more can I say? Leonardo DiCaprio FOR THE WIN!!
Runner-up: Matt Damon – “The Martian”. If for some godforsaken reason, Leo doesn’t win, then I have a sneaky suspicion that his co-star from “The Departed” will take home the award.
SIDE NOTE: Imagine if both Leo and Kate win their respective Oscars on Sunday. That would be like the 1998 Academy Awards all over again, except they won’t be winning for “Titanic”, they would have actually won Oscars on the same night, there’s no James Cameron, and the Best Picture Oscar would go to……
BEST FILM:
See my shooting star wish above. What I really meant to say was…
Best Picture: My top 3 picks for the Best Picture Oscar are “The Revenant”, “Bridge of Spies” and yes, “Mad Max: Fury Road”. But I really think that the Academy will give its much-coveted award to Alejandro Iñárritu’s latest masterpiece”The Revenant”. Brutal and beautiful, grim and gorgeous, unflinching and unforgettable, this is Alejandro Iñárritu’s most ambitious film to date and well-deserving of the Academy Award for Best Picture.
So what are your thoughts on my Oscar picks? Do you agree with all, some or at least one of them? Do you think this is DiCaprio’s year to shine or do you think he’ll be snubbed again? Do you think this is Stallone’s year to shine or will he have to do a fifth “Rambo” movie to get his hands on an actual Oscar? Which Oscar snub is still pissing you off? (Mine is Ridley Scott for “The Martian”. Golden Globe aside, the guy should have nominated for Best Director!) Will you be watching the Oscars on Sunday, or will you be avoiding it like your Facebook wall after an episode of “The Walking Dead” airs? Or will you be periodically checking your Facebook wall on Sunday night – or Monday morning, depending on how much of a shit you actually give – to see if your friends posted anything related to the Oscars?And of course, who do you think will be going home with an Academy Award (earned, not stolen). Comment below, and don’t forget to like and share this post! Until next time, folks.
– Matthew
Another year has begun, and you know what that means: more attempts by Hollywood to brainwash us with visually stimulating imagery, product placement, Billboard top ten hits playing in the soundtrack (Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” – I’m looking at you) and formulaic editing through the form of movie trailers just to get us poor folk to spend our hard-earned pennies in the movie theater. But seriously, folks, 2014, like the year before it, will be a year of many cinematic hits and misses. Now, there are some films that I feel neutral about for the moment, and because I know little about them, save for the occasional trailer or two, I won’t go as far to say that they’re guaranteed to flop at the box office. “Transformers 4: Age of Extinction”, for example, may shape itself to be a great film, despite my negative thoughts on the two previous sequels. “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” could be a monumentally HUGE flop, despite the hopes and prayers from the loyal TMNT fans who grew up on the cartoon TV series and subsequent live-action films (like yours truly) that it won’t suck! And those are TWO Michael Bay movies (the former directed by, and the latter produced by) that I just mentioned here! But this post is all about the movies, ten of them at that (and believe me, there are more), that I am freaking excited to see. And when you’re done checking out my list, feel free to discuss your most-anticipated and least-anticipated films of 2013 in the comments below.
10. DUMB AND DUMBER TO – Not to be excused with the pathetic excuse of a prequel “Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd” – and no, I won’t have whatever the fuck he’s having – “Dumb and Dumber To” marks the long-awaited reunion of Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels, whose chemistry helped make 1994’s “Dumb and Dumber” a comedy classic. Seriously hope this reunion is worth the 20-year wait. Release date: November 14th.
9. THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY, PART 1 – The cliffhanger at the end of “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” alone is reason enough for me to anticipate the first half of the conclusion of the “Hunger Games” movie franchise. That and seeing Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) go HAM (hard as a motherfucker) against the tyrannical Capitol. Release date: 21st November.
8. THE HOBBIT: THERE AND BACK AGAIN – Of course, I had to include this film onto my list. “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” was a superior sequel in its own right, and I am expecting “There and Back Again” to reach the emotionally satisfying level that “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” (one of my all-time favourite movies) reached back in 2003. Or close to it, at least. And no, I didn’t read “The Hobbit”, so please don’t spoil the end of it for me. The end of “The Desolation of Smaug” was enough build-up for me, thank you very much! Release date: December 17th.
7. DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES – First, they rose. Now, they dawned. Let’s hope they don’t give us a “new moon” anytime soon! HAIL CAESAR!! Release date: July 11th.
6. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY – All I know is that’s it’s a tie-in to “The Avengers” (the first instance of this being the end-credit scene in “Thor: The Dark World”), and it’s got a talking raccoon with a fucking laser gun and shit! That’s ALL I need to know…..right now, that is! Release date: August 1st.
5. CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER – This sequel to “Captain America: The First Avenger” is sure to please the Avengers fans who weren’t particularly fond with the 1940s-serial aesthetic of the original film (which I actually enjoyed, in case you were wondering). But for me, I’m intrigued to see how Cap’s relevance as an all-American hero in a modern time will be explored in this movie. And how much cans of whoop-ass he’ll be receiving from the Winter Soldier – or vice versa. Release date: April 4th.
4. X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST – This cinematic fusion between the original X-Men trilogy (which started off so well and ended so…..unwell) and the excellent prequel “X-Men: First Class” is clearly an ambitious film project. But under the hands of Bryan Singer (who helmed the first two X-Men movies), this may turn out to be one of 2014’s surprisingly great films. Release date: May 23rd.
3. TRANSCENDENCE – With performances by Johnny Depp, Morgan Freeman, Paul Bettany, Rebecca Hall and Cillian Murphy, and directorial duties by veteran cinematographer and frequent collaborator with Christopher Nolan of “The Dark Knight Trilogy” fame Wally Pfister in his first directing gig, “Transcendence” may be THE intelligent, thought-provoking, mind-fuck sci-fi movie of 2014…. Release date: April 18th.
2. INTERSTELLAR – …..if it wasn’t for this upcoming film from Christopher Nolan himself. Expect this movie and “Transcendence” to go head-to-head (literally) this year. Release date: November 7th.
And coming in at Number 1 is…..
But seriously, though. My number one most highly awaited film of 2014 is:
1. GODZILLA – After the unofficial 1998 American entry into the Japanese-originated Godzilla film franchise tanked at the box office – and nearly ended the career of Matthew Broderick – Hollywood tried once again to breathe new life into the franchise that, for decades, found itself in campy, cheesy, WTF territory. The teaser trailer (which, for some dumb reason was deleted a few hours after its release) showed the destruction that this incarnation of the mutated lizard was capable of. But this trailer – which ranks among the best I’ve seen last year – gives the viewer a bigger glimpse of what to expect in this film. Paratroopers leaping to their supposed doom. A large military presence reminiscent of the Japanese films. Bryan Cranston from “Breaking Bad”. And of course, Godzilla, in his gargantuan bad-assery! Believe it or not, but I have nothing but high hopes for this film. Not only will it commemorate the 50th anniversary of “Godzilla”, but it may be the film that will help retain the glory the franchise once had. HAIL GOJIRA!! Yeah, I know I said earlier to hail Caesar, but Caesar’s roar is nowhere close to Godzilla’s (or “Gojira” as it’s called in Japan)….so yeah, HAIL GOJIRA, bitches!! Release date: May 16th.
RUNNERS-UP: The Amazing Spider-Man 2, How to Train your Dragon 2, The Expendables 3, Muppets Most Wanted, 300: Rise of an Empire, Noah, The LEGO Movie, The Raid 2, Edge of Tomorrow.
– Matthew
BBB RADIO 