Alternate Ending - Movie Review Podcast

We're in the heart of Oscarbait season, and it wouldn't be autumn without at least a couple of movies where somebody puts a whole shitload of latex on their face in an attempt to win an Academy Award nomination for their trouble (this year: Tom Cruise in Digger and Nicolas Cage in Madden). Tim, Mandy, and Cameron are taking the opportunity to contemplate the long history and wildly inconsistent quality of make-up assisted acting from the silent period to now. Before the main event, Mandy brings the super-buzzy You Can See Everything to our movie roundtable while Cameron goes bac...

Welcome to Your Movie Rocks, an Alternate Ending podcast hosted by Mandy Albert. For every episode, Mandy will watch a movie assigned by her guest host, followed by a lively discussion. There's only one rule: no matter what the movie does to her, Mandy is only allowed to love it.

It's been almost two months since the last time we went long on Star Trek - very long! - and clearly that can't stand. So Brian joins Mandy this week to force her to watch the one Star Trek movie that she famously has no recollection of ha...

We've got a jam-packed month of movies coming our way in November, and Tim is joined by Cameron and Brian in a long fight to talk about as many of them as we possibly can, from Oscarbait to trashy children's movies. Before the main event, Brian catches up with the video animation Aztec Batman, while Tim has been tasked by Patreon supporter emob to watch the absolutely wild Italian horror movie Amok Train AKA Beyond the Door III AKA Amok Train: Fahrts in Nichts AKA... well, it's an Italian film, so AKA a lot of things. Cameron has taken up t...

Tim and Brennan kick off a unit on horror movies adapted from comic books with the urtext of modern superhero movies, 1998's BLADE!

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Happy early Halloween from Alternate Ending! This week's episode finds Gavin and Caleb using the long, long-delayed release of the uncut version of Ken Russell's The Devils, a controversial masterpiece about a witch panic, to take a deep dive into cinematic depictions of witches: what defines a witch, why are so many of the best witches in non-horror, and how far we can go in trying to fit non-witches into a witch-shaped box. With both Tim and Brennan distracted by other spooky season obligations, Gavin and Caleb welcome Dan Stalcup and Brian Terrill, co-hosts of The Goods: A Film P...

Welcome to Your Movie Rocks, an Alternate Ending podcast hosted by Mandy Albert. For every episode, Mandy will watch a movie assigned by her guest host, followed by a lively discussion. There's only one rule: no matter what the movie does to her, Mandy is only allowed to love it.

Awards season is revving up, and so is scary movie season, though in keeping with the past few years, October is marked by an odd paucity of horror movies. But the month still has quite a lot coming out, and to help carve your way through it, Brennan is joined by Brian Fowler and Zev Burrows for an overview of all five weekends of wide releases in the next month. Before that, Zev brings the Ida Lupino film noir masterpiece The Hitch-Hiker to the movie roundtable, while Brennan catches up with the new Resident Evil. Brian, meanwhile, explores new fro...

Tim and Brennan close out their unit on slasher movies by exploring the giddy madness of DOOM ASYLUM!

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We do like talking here at Alternate Ending, so what could be a more natural subject than speeches, soliloquies, and other long-winded exercises in talking until you're all talked out? The team turns their attention to the history and phenomenology of monologues this week, with Tim joined by Brian Fowler and topic sponsor Andrew Milne to share some of our favorite examples of the form, along with a bit of acting theory and a good old-fashioned (very old-fashioned) rant about how sound ruined cinema. For the movie roundtable, Andrew takes a look at classic sci-fi/horror B-picture It! The T...

September 8 is the 60th anniversary of the first broadcast of Star Trek on U.S. television, and to celebrate the franchise reaching this grand old age, Tim is joined by fellow Trek enthusiasts Mandy and Josh Albert, formerly of At Least There's a Dog: A Star Trek: Enterprise Episode Review Podcast. Three old-school Trekkers getting into the franchise turned out to be more than we could fit into just one episode (or under four total hours), so we have here Alternate Ending's first two-part episode. In Part II, the trio covers the series's theatrical releases, and its 2017 resurrection under the...

September 8 is the 60th anniversary of the first broadcast of Star Trek on U.S. television, and to celebrate the franchise reaching this grand old age, Tim is joined by fellow Trek enthusiasts Mandy and Josh Albert, formerly of At Least There's a Dog: A Star Trek: Enterprise Episode Review Podcast. Three old-school Trekkers getting into the franchise turned out to be more than we could fit into just one episode (or under four total hours), so we have here Alternate Ending's first two-part episode. In Part I, the trio goes over the TV side of Trek from its '60...

  Welcome to Your Movie Rocks, an Alternate Ending podcast hosted by Mandy Albert. For every episode, Mandy will watch a movie assigned by her guest host, followed by a lively discussion. There's only one rule: no matter what the movie does to her, Mandy is only allowed to love it.   This month, Mandy welcomes podcast first-timer Jacob Birkinshaw to discuss mother! (lowercase first letter and exclamation point required), darren! aronofsky!'s notorious 2017 psychological horror movie!, box-office bomb!, and painstaking allegory for something!  It's widely agreed that mother! is the point at which aronofsky! vanished irretrievably while spelunking inside his own intes...

Summer ends and fall has not yet begun, and Brennan is joined by Brian and Caleb in a valiant attempt to find out if anything opening in September is going to be worth a damn. The answer turns out to be "not really", but at least it gives you a chance to see The Odyssey on IMAX again. Before diving into the preview, the gang shares some things they've watched recently in the movie roundtable: Brian follows in the footsteps of this month's Your Movie Rocks by revisiting 2023's Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, while Brennan and Caleb both take th...

Tim and Brennan's next 1980s slasher movie is a sorority classic, THE INITIATION!

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For our second episode of August 2026, Tim and Brian have found themselves all along in the recording studio, and with nobody else to stop them, they inevitably made a beeline for the filmography of Ingmar Bergman. Specifically, they're talking about the thee films the great director made between 1961 and 1963: Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, and The Silence. Alternate Ending's two resident Bergman nuts go long on the status of the three films as a contested trilogy, and their status in the director's filmography. Before the main event, Tim adds to our developing conversation from two weeks ago on Chr...

Welcome to Your Movie Rocks, an Alternate Ending podcast hosted by Mandy Albert. For every episode, Mandy will watch a movie assigned by her guest host, followed by a lively discussion. There's only one rule: no matter what the movie does to her, Mandy is only allowed to love it.

August marks the 16th anniversary of the release of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which isn't actually the reason that Gavin - appearing for the third time on Your Movie Rocks! - selected it. Rather, it's because he wanted to give Mandy a movie she was undoubtedly g...

While The Odyssey rages on as the event film of the summer and Spider-Man: Brand New Day prepares to make just the silliest amountof money, August waits in the wings to end the summer with a squishy thud. Tim returns for his first monthly preview in several months to stare down the bleakness, and he's helped by guests Cameron Shaw and Caleb Wimble. Before diving into the preview, Caleb and Cameron share their thoughts on that same Odyssey, before kicking off our usual movie roundtable: Cameron catches up with the Arthurian classic Excalibur from 1981, while Caleb checks out the new...

To kick off a summer unit on 1980s slashers, Tim and Brennan review the iconically kooky Spanish giallo riff PIECES!

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The presumptive biggest film of summer, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is right around the corner, and we're greeting it with a extra-large episode with an extra-large cast. Brennan is joined by Brian Fowler, Andrew Milne, and Caleb Wimble to take a look at the history of our friendly neighborhood superhero dating all the way back to the 1970s, right up to the current run of megablockbusters. Before tackling the amazing webslinger, the movie roundtable that kicks off the episode is jam-packed with new releases, as Andrew is thrilled to catch up with The Furious, Caleb has a surprisingly warm...

Welcome to Your Movie Rocks, an Alternate Ending podcast hosted by Mandy Albert.  For every episode, Mandy will watch a movie assigned by her guest host, followed by a lively discussion.  There's only one rule: no matter what the movie does to her, Mandy is only allowed to love it.

The Alternate Ending team is trying to beat the heat during this sweltering summer by looking forward to spending some time in a nice, air-conditioned movie theater. Brennan is joined by Gavin and Caleb to chat about the new films of July 2026, of which there are honestly not that many. But perhaps the lack of quantity will be matched with an uptick in quality. To kick things off with the movie roundtable, Gavin tackles the bizarre and potentially misguided French animated gay satire Jim Queen and the Quest for Chloroqueer, Brennan has a chance to catch the subject of...

For our final episode on Newlywed Horror, Tim and Brennan break down the most explicitly honeymoony movie of them all, Leigh Janiak's HONEYMOON!

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June 2026 marks the 40th anniversary of the Jim Henson cult classic Labyrinth, and the team decided that it was a perfect opportunity to take a look back at this beloved example of dark fantasy. We're also taking it as an excuse to compare and contrast the state of children's media then and now, and to that end, Tim is joined by Cameron and Mandy, our two main experts on child development, and in Cameron's case, '80s movies. Before turning to Labyrinth, Mandy brings the recent buzzy film Obsession to our movie roundtable, while Cameron brings the recent buzzy fil...

June's Your Movie Rocks welcomes back Zev Burrows, who has used his guest power to achieve two very important tasks at once: first, he has made himself a true Steven Spielberg completist by assigning both himself and Mandy the storied director's 1941, also known as The Spielberg Joint Almost No One Likes.  He has also given Mandy the dubious privilege of perhaps being the only person alive who has seen 1941, but not Raiders of the Lost Ark.  Tune in to hear various theories on what the hell Steven thought he was doing with this film, how much of it actually wo...

Summer is in full swing, and the team is here to take a look at the films of what might well be the most promising month of the season. Brennan is joined by Brian and Caleb to take a look at films ranging from the fifth Toy Story to the latest Steven Spielberg alien epic, with a stopover to consider the month's spate of gay horror pictures. Meanwhile, Brian can't wait to launch into a long chat about the new version of Supergirl. Before that, for the movie roundtable, Caleb catches up with the suddenly-timely documentary Leaving Neverland, and Bre...

For the second of three episodes breaking down Newlywed Horror, Tim and Brennan dig into the kooky Boris Karloff/Bela Lugosi joint THE BLACK CAT!

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Baz Luhrmann's maximalist jukebox musical Moulin Rouge! turns 25 years old this month, which seems like the perfect opportunity to revisit the film and contemplate its impact on the musical genre in the years since. Tim is joined by resident music expert Zev Burrows for a spectacular, spectacular conversation about a film that had a major impact on both of them, sometimes to break it down, sometimes just to gush. Before turning to Moulin Rouge!, Zev catches up with the 1985 feminist coming of age drama Smooth Talk, while courtesy of Patreon supporter Maxwell Jacobson, Tim is grappling with 2023's romantic thr...

Welcome to Your Movie Rocks, an Alternate Ending podcast hosted by Mandy Albert.  For every episode, Mandy will watch a movie assigned by her guest host, followed by a lively discussion.  There's only one rule: no matter what the movie does to her, Mandy is only allowed to love it.

This month, we welcome Brennan Klein back to the show to discuss Marci X, an early-aughts comedy of manners that had Lisa Kudrow rapping, and also wrapping up her career, and if you thought that joke was lame, wait until you hear some of the ones we ma...

To get the summer movie season started, Brennan is joined by Caleb and Gavin. The two of them force Brennan to talk more about Mortal Kombat II more than he wants, while glossing over such less-anticipated films like the new Star Wars. To get the show started, it's a quartet of brand-new releases for the movie roundtable: Caleb sees the much-hyped Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie, Brennan drags himself to The Strangers: Chapter 3, and Gavin does a compare-and-contrast with Ready or Not 2: Here I Come and They Will Kill You.

For the first of three episodes breaking down Newlywed Horror, Tim and Brennan discuss Mario Bava's HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON!

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Currently in theaters, Hoppers is the 30th feature-length film by Pixar Animation Studios. That seemed like an important enough number for us to turn to one of the evergreen questions: what's going on with Pixar, exactly? Tim is joined by Zev and Cameron to reminisce about the studio's history and mull over its recent run of films that mostly haven't lit the world on fire at the box office or in reviews. Before getting to Pixar, Zev brings Agnès Varda's very first film, La Pointe Courte, to our movie roundtable, while Cameron revisits a childhood favorite, Return to Oz...

Welcome to Your Movie Rocks, an Alternate Ending podcast hosted by Mandy Albert.  For every episode, Mandy will watch a movie assigned by her guest host, followed by a lively discussion.  There's only one rule: no matter what the movie does to her, Mandy is only allowed to love it.

April's Your Movie Rocks sees the return of two Alternate Ending main characters: editor-in-chief Tim Brayton back for his second go-round; and The Guy From The Hottie & the Nottie, last heard from in the episode on Spiral (2007), and visiting with us again, because, well...we're talking about Th...

We're saying goodbye to March by getting in right under the wire with a preview of the films coming out in April 2026, with mere hours to go before The Super Mario Galaxy Movie wall-jumps its way into theaters. Are Tim and Andrew excited about this billion-dollar franchise hopeful? No, they are absolutely not. But they are excited for other things, and if you want to hear what those are, you'll just have to give the episode a listen! Prior to looking ahead, we look behind, in our movie roundtable: Andrew has, uncharacteristically, managed to catch a new release, Project Hai...

Tim and Brennan dig a skeleton out of Oscar nominee Ethan Hawke's closet by reviewing his post-Twilight dystopian vampire movie DAYBREAKERS!

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Fresh of off One Battle After Another and Sinners sharing a combined haul of 10 Oscars, the Alternate Ending crew is here with our thoughts on the ceremony and winners. Tim is joined by Cameron and Caleb to talk about the surprises, the weird technical snafus, and have a hot debate over the inherent distastefulness of the In Memoriam montage.

With the Oscars coming up fast, it's the time of year we like to take stock of the movie year that was, and so Brennan is joined this week by an extra-large crew, as Caleb Wimble, Cameron Shaw, and Gavin McDowell come along to look at the good, the bad, and the ugly of 2025. For the movie roundtable, Gavin discusses the new Pixar movie Hoppers, Caleb visits Oscar-nominated Belgian animated feature Little Amélie or the Character of Rain, Cameron checks out the niche documentary Tight and Nerdy, and Brennan does his grim duty by viewing Scream VII.

March sees the return of Mandy's old podcasting partner (and husband) Josh, who has decided to get timely with his Your Movie Rocks picks and has assigned Mandy the original Super Mario Bros. movie.  No, not that one.  That one, the one that somehow, at the same time, both launched and killed the video game adaptation blockbuster.  As it turns out, that's far from the only bizarre internal contradiction of Super Mario Bros. that comes up in Mandy and Josh's conversation, because this is a movie made of strange - yet beautiful? - contradictions.  Come find out what tried Mandy's...

We have a bonus episode for you this week! To celebrate the recent publication of The Rewritten Bible in Late Antiquity, a new book by regular podcast guest and Sects, Lies, and Videotape columnist Gavin McDowell, he and Tim sit down to have a conversation about the history of movies based on stories from the Old Testament, from the silent era up to the 21st Century. What makes a good one? What, more commonly, makes a bad one? What stories do we want to see on the big screen? All of these questions and more are discussed on this s...

The Alternate Ending team, led by Brennan, prepares for the movies of March, a surprisingly full schedule of horror movies, among other things. Before the show, Caleb brings the new critical darling The Testament of Ann Lee to the movie roundtable, while Brennan suffers through Return to Silent Hill. Brian, overachiever that he is, has re-watched the entire Jack Ryan movie series, and shares his thoughts.

Tim and Brennan dig a skeleton out of Oscar nominee Kate Hudson's closet by reviewing her Southern Gothic horror outing THE SKELETON KEY!

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