Magellans at the Movies

Siblings. Can’t live with ‘em, absolutely can live without ‘em, but, unfortunately for those of us who are not criminally minded, circumstances often restrict our options. Life with a brother or sister doesn’t have to be all misery and movie podcasts, however, for some brotherhood comes naturally, as is the case for the titular bros of The Blues Brothers, a 1980 musical comedy directed by John Landis. Adapted from sketches of the glory days of SNL (that’s Saturday Night Live for you uncultured types), this bouncy, melodious fable of fraternal frolicking is both well known and well liked for...

Obsession, it’s what I feel for videos of tortoises eating lettuce and the name of a 2026 horror movie directed by Curry Barker that Magellans at the Movies are reviewing today.

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Malls . . . uh . . . hmmm, that's a tricky one. Malls are no longer the lively, vibrant organisms they once were, after all. The few remaining malls that haven't been torn down shuffle around on rotting legs in a desperate search for sustenance, you might even say the shopping mall has become something like a . . . zombie? That's right, dear listeners, today we are returning to the undead apocalypse by tackling what many would argue represents the absolute zenith of the genre: Dawn of the Dead, a 1978 horror film directed by father of the modern zombie George Romero. Dawn's reputation is that of...

SIMON! GARFUNKEL! SHUT UP ALREADY! Sorry about that, folks, I’m trying to write the description for today’s new episode, but the incessant crooning of everyone’s ninth favorite musical duo haunts my every waking moment and turns my life into a living hell ever since I watched The Graduate, a 1967 romantic comedy directed by Mike Nichols. You may not have seen this classic tale of sordid twists and youthful ennui with its, uh, enthusiastic score provided by the men whose voices now infect my brain like a malignant tumor, but you’re almost certainly familiar with its imagery...

Please stop making me write these descriptions. I’ve never seen a movie in my life. Nathan throws plot descriptions into the pit where he keeps me and just expects me to know how to set up the episode with a few jokes and some basic information. I have a doctorate in applied physics and another in analytical chemistry, I don’t care about movies! If anyone is reading this, please send help. I'm being held in some kind of underground structure, maybe an old coal mine. I can hear cars at all times of the day so it must...

Hello there! How about pigeons, am I right? What’s that? You don’t understand? How unfortunate, you see, that joke is a guaranteed knee-slapper in the standup clubs of Albania, but it seems the witticism’s humor has been lost in translation. Oh my, I see you’ve begun to feel deeply isolated and alienated thanks to the difficulty of culture shock. Perhaps you’ll feel seen by the subject of today’s brand new episode of Magellans at the Movies: Lost in Translation! This 2003 romance/comedy directed by Sofia Coppola is all about the struggle of feeling stranded in...

Space. The final frontier, and the setting for innumerable science fiction books, movies, TV shows, and video games. Space being such a vast and, as far as we know, blank canvas makes it the perfect medium upon which to project stories about ourselves and our place in the universe, a fact of which many properties have taken full advantage, but perhaps none more memorably than Star Trek. Despite the Federation’s first appearance predating the end of the Cold War by decades, this legendary sci-fi franchise is not unknown to Magellans at the Movies. We actually dove into Star Tr...

Welcome to Gotham City. A gloomy den of exotic criminality where the rain is frequent, the people fearful, and the architecture alternatingly Gothic, Art Deco, and, uh, Chicago. Gotham isn't on its own in the fight against evil and inconsistent changing art directors, though; she rests under the protection of the Caped Crusader himself, Batman! The Dark Knight is one of the most recognizable and beloved characters in fiction, and this big broody bat has transcended the pages of comics to reach just about every medium you can think of over the years. There's bat-games, bat-novels, bat-toys, bat-trading cards...

The devil. According to various religious and folkloric traditions this dastardly fellow is in the details, better if you know him, and a beast on the fiddle. What, some bold theologians dare to ask, of his wardrobe? The popular imagination may propose a red suit, but what if he - or she - were to dress in a rather more high class fashion? That’s right, faithful listeners, today Magellans at the Movies will be reviewing The Devil Wears Prada, a 2006 comedy directed by David Frankel and based on the book of the same name by Lauren Weisberger. This fa...

Drugs. When just saying no to them somehow fails, their introduction into your life is likely to bring problems as numerous as they are unpleasant. For those of you unwilling to take the word of Nancy Reagan and Mr. T, a demonstration of the full breadth of addiction’s woes may be what’s needed to keep your seat on the wagon. Thankfully, there are plenty of movies to choose from, one of the most prominent being Requiem for a Dream, a 2000 drama directed by Darren Aronofsky and based on the book of the same name by Hubert Selby Jr...

Today we will review a 2024 James Mangold directed movie called, A Complete Unknown, and honestly? Same. However, you may feel better about your anonymity when you learn that the cost of celebrity is being a two-timing, contrarian, standoffish jerk who looks (and acts) like Anakin Skywalker in Attack of the Clones. Perhaps I’m being harsh. Many people enjoyed this movie charting the ascent of folk-music hero Bob Dylan, enough that it nabbed itself more than a few award nominations. Will it enjoy a similar reception from Magellans at the Movies, or is the film just blowin in the wi...

Law. It’s one of humanity’s oldest, most important systems, boasting manifestations as numerous as they are complex. From the Code of Justinian to those weird, uniform series of books you see on lawyers’ shelves, everyone can agree that the law is important but not popularly understood. In many ways, an impenetrable, interlocking structure of codes, dictates, exceptions, statutes, and other words I’m probably not using right is a little weird when you think about it, a little chaotic, a little alienating, dare I say a little . . . kafkaesque? That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, Magellans at the Movies is...

Math and baseball, who knew they went together like burgers and fries? Probably all those guys with arsenals of complex spreadsheets who end up being the only ones who actually win big in sports betting, but for the rest of us dumb rubes I imagine it came as a surprise. Fortunately, you’re not alone, and if you wish to see how widespread your ignorance truly was, just watch the crow-chowing skeptics of Moneyball, a 2011 sports drama directed by Bennett Miller and based on the book of the same name by Michael Lewis. This statistics-heavy record of the Oakland A’...

William Shakespeare and his vocabulary of thous, thees, and doths has been the delight of literature nerds and the scourge of high school students since before ChatGPT had even sanctioned its first user delusion. Shakespeare is one of the best selling authors in human history (though he’s had a lot of time to build up that lead, to be fair), the most performed playwright in theater, and has been firmly atop the canon of English literature for centuries. Big Bill Shakespeare isn’t just winning on the stage, however, he’s also been adapted for the screen, many times...

The tragic sinking of the RMS Titanic was an event that saw the telling of many stories. Stories of heroism and valor as well as cowardice and ugliness. Unfortunately, none of those stories included a pair of young hotties who could be played by bankable heartthrob stars enjoying a passionate but doomed love affair, so the good people of tinsel town had to step in for the movie version. Titanic, the 1997 historical romance directed by James Cameron, may be more fiction than fact, but that didn’t stop it from achieving legendary success. This fable of the water-borne Babel ra...

As the people in my basement will tell you, in hostage situations as in parties, your host is often the difference between a legendary, all night rager and a brief, unpleasant excursion sure to end in tragedy. Remember: as the one with the gun, you are responsible for the comfort, health, and restraints of your guests, and it takes a sharp, compassionate mind to juggle these responsibilities. Without these factors in mind, things can go south fast, as evidenced by the quirky kidnapping at the heart of Bugonia, a 2025 comedy thriller directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and based on Save...

How many times has it been said? In order to navigate life, you simply must keep a good head on your shoulders. To be fair, this advice makes perfect sense: without a head on your shoulders, you’re sure to both look very silly, make very poor decisions, and be very dead. Or at least that is the lesson of Hereditary, a 2018 horror movie directed by Ari Aster and featuring a cult for whom people walking around with their heads attached is the very height of indecency. This decapitation-obsessed chiller made a big splash on release, terrifying audiences and gu...

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, nerds of all ages, welcome to Magellans at the Movies Film Fight Night! We have an electrifying match for you this evening: a contest that has been raging across fandom for decades, a question that has divided geeks into two factions of noble warriors doing battle on message boards in the name of their preferred champion, a smackdown between two of the most famous, most celebrated, most prolific characters in all of science fiction, that's right Trekkies, for one night only Magellans at the Movies will be an arena in which Captains Kirk...

Books! Books are great. They’re transportive and informative; they make you look real smart if you “accidentally” leave them out where they’re sure to be seen before guests arrive (“good heavens, I’ve left my copy of 2666 in the original Spanish in the freezer, oh silly me!”). Of course, refrigerating classic literature you’ve definitely never read is on the brighter side of the utility of books; they can also be used for sinister purposes. Indeed, the conflict over whether to use books for good or ill is at the heart of today’s episode of Magellans at the Movies wher...

Is season five of Stranger Things good? Well, stranger things have happened! Now that you’re done keeling over with hysterical laughter at that hilarious joke, please join Magellans at the Movies as they review the inexplicably long series finale of Netflix’s golden goose.

Contact us/Requests/Questions: MagellansMovies@gmail.com

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Check out our blog for more reviews and movie content!!! https://magellansatthemoviesblog.blogspot.com/

What an utterly terrible year 2025 has been. People are angry, depressed, and hopelessly ensnared in economic woes, and Europe is doing an alarmingly accurate throwback cosplay of the continent’s 1913 political situation. For all desiring an escape from the bleak headlines and bleaker forecasts, however, there were still movies in this the two thousand and twenty fifth year of our Lord, some of them quite good. There were sleeper hits like Sinners and very much wakeful flops like Thunderbolts, Snow White, Mickey 17, Captain America, and . . . just so many more. Still, we all know (I hope) that money hardly equates wi...

Stand by me. If that's something I ever say to you, be aware that I have likely been replaced by an alien clone. Of course, I’m the odd one here. Proximity, and the intimacy implied therein are highly valued among many people, especially watchers of Stand By Me, the 1986 coming of age classic directed by Rob Reiner and based on The Body by Stephen King. This sweet, simple movie about friendship and boyhood along a morbid quest has been a favorite with critics and audiences since release, but what will become of all the walking, talking, and gawking wh...

Ah, to be alive in the 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. When the global power of communism reached its absolute zenith, just about everyone in the world had to team up to forcibly administer Germany two successive chill pills, and the war to end all wars failed its stated purpose. Lots of important stuff happened during the first half of the twentieth century, but here at Magellans at the Movies, we don't talk about important stuff, we talk about movies. Cinema was a very young art form during this time, and some of the most influential movies...

There’s nothing quite like a night at the theater. Taking in Shakespeare from within a few hundred to a few dozen feet of the actual, living actors is just a different experience to seeing them from behind the editing and pausability of a film. Haven’t you ever wondered, though, what happens behind the curtain? In high school, it was mostly fart jokes and giggling about who was kissing who in the play, but in the more mature world of professional theater, it’s mostly snappy dialogue and fuming about who is kissing who outside the play. And, I assu...

RAAAAWR!!! Oh, apologies, I didn’t mean to terrify you with my mighty roar. You see, I was just pretending to be a dinosaur. What silly, brutish creatures they were. How unintelligent, how undeveloped, how incompatible with polite society is the crude dinosaur. Wait, what’s that? Dinosaurs weren’t low beasts, but in fact loved, dreamed, feared, and laughed? Of course! You’re right, how could I have forgotten the sentient dinos of The Land Before Time, a 1988 animated adventure directed by Don Bluth? As any good paleontologist will tell you, this film of legendary scientific accuracy depicts dinosaur...

Travel. Doesn’t the very concept just send a shiver down your spine? Sure, it’s nice to be at the Brickworks Museum in beautiful Southampton, England, but getting there is a nightmare of lines, layovers, fares, and odors. Honestly it’s enough to put one off of learning about bricks at the premier institute for global brick study in the first place, but is it enough to put you off getting home for a nice Thanksgiving meal? Certainly not for the heroes of Planes, Trains and Automobiles, a 1987 holiday themed comedy about two mismatched travelers struggling to travel across...

You low down dirty rotten scoundrel, I’ll kill you for replacing my cornflakes with a colony of cockroaches! How many times have you heard those words? It’s only natural that when someone is wronged, they desire restitution, sometimes in the form of violent revenge. The next time you play a hilarious prank on someone and they come gunning for you, however, you may wish to show them a film to educate them on the dangers of vengeance. You’ll have quite a lot to choose from, but may we recommend Blue Ruin, a 2013 crime drama directed by Jeremy...

Wait! Did you hear that? It was the sound of demonic mischief made as the witching hour unfolds. It was the sound of infernal whispers in the darkness. It was the sound of someone, or something . . . putting mayonnaise in my yogurt?!? Aw come on, that’s just childish! This series of ghostly pranks tells me that I am at the mercy of a very particular breed of hell-sent spirit, a monstrous devil who hates open doors, loves standing, and is extremely camera shy, that’s right, folks, I’ve landed myself on the bad side of the demon from Parano...

“Hey, Steve, how’s work going on that calendar?”

“Oh, hey, Barry. It's going all right, but aren’t you worried this is a little vague?”

“Whatever do you mean, Steve?”

“Well, what if we haven’t been clear enough about the meaning of the Long Count calendar, and in the future people misunderstand our dating system as prophesying the end of the world?”

“Oh, Steve, don't be silly. You’d have to be into some pretty weird New Age beliefs to think that.”

“I suppose you’re right, Barry. Say, isn’t it weird how w...

Wizards have a long history, not just in movies, but in fiction generally. Whether they’re running a class action lawsuit just waiting to happen in the form of a deathtrap boarding school, going on road trips to return some seriously defective jewelry, or burning things at random to punctuate each sentence, audiences everywhere delight in sorcerers of screen, page, and stage. Fictional wizards (as opposed to real wizards, of course) could also come in the form of a de facto monarch lording over an enclave of green structures erected in his own selfish image, exchanging favors for the as...

Stand back, coppers, I've got a brainwashed child and I'm not afraid to use it! How many times have you heard that phrase barked from the mouths of bank robbers and rum runners? In the past few months, I know there's not a day that goes by in Kansas City without the sight of gangs aiming military-grade elementary schoolers at each other in tense standoffs. This sudden arsenal of adolescents is, in my opinion, attributable mainly to people misunderstanding the point of Weapons, a 2025 horror movie directed by Zach Cregger. After all, this spine-tingling story of the kids being...

You sleep through your alarm on the day of your big presentation, you leave your wallet at home the one day you decide to push the speed limit, your dad’s human illegal exotic pet empire gets dismantled and the proceeds reclaimed at the very moment you need money for bond, the bomb you intended for the alarm clock company as vengeance for their substandard products explodes in your hand leaving you with quite a bit of egg, and your own arm, on your face; my friends, it truly is one battle after another. Thankfully, while you wait for yo...

Moving on can be hard for many reasons, but for those of us leaving behind disinterested parents, monthslong torture, and the deaths of most everyone we care about, consigning most of our lives to memory lane is more than welcome. I, for example, yearn to relocate to a remote village in the Alps and thereby escape the many obligations I've accumulated to the wealthy investors in my "dog to human translation" company, but that's a silly example. For a more serious case, look no further than Jesse Pinkman's mission to get the heck out of Dodge/Albuquerque as seen...

A star is born. Not because a mommy star and a daddy star loved each other very much, or even because a clump of matter and gas collapsed under its own gravity (I think), but because a person has a talent for singing which they perform for a wide listening audience. What transpires across the lifespan of our newborn star has historically varied, but common themes include substance abuse, fraught relationships, and, if they're very lucky, Oscars. I'm talking, of course, about the 2018 musical romance A Star is Born, directed by Bradley Cooper. This melodic melodrama was favored by...

Oh no! There’s been a glitch in the matrix, forcing the Wachowskis to reload their save! Thankfully they’ve backed up their data and can proceed with the first of two planned sequels wrapping up the original Matrix trilogy. The Matrix Reloaded, like so many sequels, tries to follow up a groundbreaking first installment by embodying a single word: more. More elaborate kung fu fisticuffs, more Agent Smiths, more convoluted philosophizing, more whisper-talk, and of course, much more latex. The result is a dense, action-packed, confusing, and slightly kinky middle act that, while hardly an object of derision, is g...

Ah, to be alive in the 60s. When reds hid under beds for reasons unknown, protestors in the street inquired as to the precise uses of war, and men arrived on the moon, decided it was a bit nothing, and moved back to Earth. Yes, the period of time between January 1st, 1960 and December 31st, 1969 sure was a barrel of laughs, some of which could be enjoyed at the movies for the low low price of some shoelaces, probably. Indeed, they made a whole heap of movies during the 60s, which makes it hard for the man or woman...

Pitiless cruelty. Vicious misanthropy. Terror in every eye, rumor in every mouth, escape on every mind. No, I’m not talking about my extremely hardcore bookclub, I’m talking about high school! No one likes high school, that’s why making jokes about its abundant unpleasantness is so creative and funny, but the fact that high school is an almost universally shared experience makes it prime fodder for movies. One of the most enduring examples of this curious genre is undoubtedly Mean Girls, a 2008 teen comedy directed by Mark Waters. This sarcasm-heavy female-centric kneeslapper aimed to speak into the lives...

I don't know about you, but the best part of my day is always coming home. Now, sure, the state of my residence is not always pristine, the neighbor plays dreadful anime music at a deafening volume, and the pallets of weapons grade LSD are prime for toe-stubbing, but whatever the condition of your castle, I think for many of us it's often a relief to get back to it after a long journey. If, however, your journey included things like war, suffering, and a cyclops or two, then your homecoming may be slightly more fraught. That, at least...

I'm going to write this whole description without referencing the "inconceivable" joke, you watch. What on Earth are you talking about, I hear you ask, embarrassingly revealing yourself to be under the age of forty. Why, my young, Tik-Toking friend, I'm talking about every dad's favorite movie The Princess Bride, of course! This 1987 fantasy/adventure/comedy/romance mashup based on The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure, the "Good Parts" Version by William Goldman may not have set the world on fire on release, but it's since become a beloved pop culture mainstay...

All right, gotta write a new jokey, sarcastic description for the podcast. Let’s see what’s on the schedule. Prisoners, eh? Sounds like you’ll be doing hard time with that movie, hyuck hyuck hyuck. Anyways, released in 2013, directed by Denis Villeneuve, about a kidnapping, huh, that’s a tricky one. Family man driven to utter depravity by the loss of his daughter . . . ouch, um . . . I guess there’s a joke in there about overbearing dads losing it at little league games? Men and women making terrible choices out of sheer desperation . . . uh . . . sounds like your typical Friday night at t...