Load Bearing Beams

When Laci wins a Golden Ticket, she invites Matt as her plus-one for her super-secret tour of Willy Wonka's factory... and we're violating our NDAs by bringing you along too! Have you ever wanted to know the functional purpose of the Chocolate Room, where everything is edible? Or why the city of Munich seems to have such fanatical attachment to the Wonka Corporation? And what exactly Mr. Wonka is doing behind those walls, and what his products are doing to our libidos? And, uh... If you want to hear us actually talk about the 1971 Gene Wilder movie, we have a whole 2-plus-hour episode about coming out on Monday (Dec. 17, 2023) for you. Happy holidays!  

Get out your stapler gun and empty your shitter, because it’s time to look at the holiday classic National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989) in extraordinary detail.  Laci’s seen this film dozens of times, while Matt had only seen it once, decades ago. To prepare, he watched the entire Vacation series, and he has much to say about the merits of the individual Vacation films, despite no one asking him to do this. Plus, we admire Clark Griswold’s aptitude for concealing his boners and Randy Quaid’s aptitude for lifting giant bags of dog food. Happy holidays, everybody! Watch this episode in full: https://youtu.be/MNhh7EfxV_4  Next week: We’re doing a very normal episode about Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971).  At the end of the month, we’re doing a mailbag. Please submit questions to us. We’ll answer them! Here’s where you do it: https://youtu.be/yzFA8dTPYsI   Time stamps: 00:03:19 — Our personal histories with Christmas Vacation 00:07:45 — Pre-movie predictions 00:18:46 — History segment: The Har

Matt had Laci watch the “beloved” “family” Christmas-present-hunt movie Jingle All the Way (1996). So… did she have a good time? Listener, she did not. But you’ll have a good time hearing them commiserate about the experience for two hours. Why would a movie cast Arnold Schwarzeneggar to play a normal man? When is it inappropriate to buy a Christmas tree? And wouldn't this movie have been better if the quest for a coveted Turbo Man figure sent Howard (Schwarzeneggar) deep into the seedy Santa-sexual Christmas underbelly of Minneapolis? It's there in this movie if you look for it. Watch this episode in full on YouTube: https://youtu.be/QvybI1j61us  Next week: We’re covering Laci’s all-time favorite Christmas movie: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989) We’re doing a mailbag! Please submit questions to us. We’ll answer them! Here’s where you do it: https://youtu.be/yzFA8dTPYsI Time stamps: 00:02:36 — When did Christmas start to suck? 00:10:11 — Our personal histories with Jingle All the Way 00:14:33 — Pr

Hey folks! If you hadn't heard, we took this week off (on account of Thanksgiving). We'll be back in one week (Friday, December 1, 2023) with our episode about the Arnold Schwarzenegger family comedy Jingle All the Way, co-starring Future Darth Vader. Thank you so much for supporting our ridiculous show.  Matt's been doing some video reviews of recent movies on our YouTube channel. Check out: The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes - https://youtu.be/C4rMMOPdZ6I The Marvels - https://youtu.be/ZIBdcn_c7Zs Killers of the Flower Moon - https://youtu.be/9kLdXLaXlsM ALSO: We'll be doing a mailbag episode at the end of the year. Please send us your questions about movies, episodes we've done, or anything else, I guess. Tweet them to us @loadbearingpod or leave a comment on one of our YouTube videos: https://www.youtube.com/@loadbearingbeamspod

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t cure its depression. We discuss this sad fact with our friend Drew (a.k.a. Drewbie Doobie’s Movies, @drewbiedoobiemovie on TikTok) by covering a movie he loved growing up, Wolfgang Petersen’s The NeverEnding Story (1984). Yes, this movie traumatized a generation of children, but to look upon it now is to see into an alternate dimension of unbelievable practical effects and puppetry. Laci, Matt, and Drew have a great conversation gushing over how incredible this movie looks, and also get to the bottom of important questions such as: Why does Bastian spend his day off hiding inside his school? Are Atreyu and Falkor more than just friends? And is Bastian’s dad the most evil character in cinema history?  Please follow Drew on TikTok and check out the great videos he’s making about movies and physical media: https://www.tiktok.com/@drewbiedoobiemovie Next week: We’re taking a Thanksgiving break. We’ll be back with a new episode on Friday, December 1st, about the Arnold

Friend of the Show Cinematic Joshua (@CinematicJoshua on TikTok) joins us for a rollicking conversation about the cult classic Ashton Kutcher time travel picture The Butterfly Effect (2004).  Laci, Matt, and Joshua discuss the career of Ashton Kutcher, the influence of the Final Destination series on this movie, and the many different time strands this movie juggles, as well as the merits of the conventional Hollywood ending of the theatrical cut and the extremely dark original ending included in the director’s cut.  Content warning: We discuss the movie's depictions of sexual assault and self-harm.  Please follow Joshua on TikTok and check out the great work he’s doing: https://www.tiktok.com/@cinematicjoshua Time stamps: 00:06:27 — Our histories with The Butterfly Effect 00:09:52 — History segment: Career overviews of the writer/director team Eric Bress & J. Mackeye Gruber, and of stars Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart 00:21:43 — In-depth movie discussion 01:44:40 — Final thoughts and star ratings

Man, if you weren't there in the Philadelphia department store scene back in '87, then you just wouldn't get it. Luckily, the movie Mannequin (1987) is here to fill you in: It's a battle of two behemoth stores—the mom-and-pop-owned Prince & Company and the tacky upstart Illustra. At the center of it all is Jonathan Switcher (Andrew McCarthy), a dreamer with a heart of gold who falls in love with a mannequin (Kim Cattrall). Except this mannequin's secretly a real person, inhabited by the spirit of an ancient Egyptian woman named Emmy. Tale as old as time.  Swirling around all of this is a fiery debate between your hosts over whether Andrew McCarthy is a loveable and sweet everyman (Laci) or a translucent void lacking any semblance of charisma or screen presence (Matt).  Watch this episode in full on YouTube: https://youtu.be/AT5pS0Y-TqQ Time stamps: 00:03:08 — Laci's history with Mannequin and why she wanted to cover it on this episode 00:05:07 — Pre-movie predictions 00:08:10 — History segment: Career ov

We head back to Haddonfield, Illinois for another encounter with Laurie, Annie, Lynda, Michael, Sheriff Brackett, and that wacky Dr. Loomis. That's right, we're taking another (much longer) look at one of Matt's favorite movies, John Carpenter's Halloween (1978). Untouchable classic this picture may be, but Laci was not a fan back in 2017. Surely time has softened her impenetrable heart... or has it? This film established so many hallmarks of the horror genre that are still used today. But there's so much more to unpack! How did Dr. Loomis not lose his medical license? Did Bob and Lynda put the Jack-O-Lantern next to the bed, or was it already there? And what does Michael Myers think about orgasm equity?  This is our fourth and final entry in this year's collection of Load Bearing SCREAMS.    Time stamps: 00:03:17 — According to a recent study*, jump scares are dying! 00:05:38 — Our respective histories with Halloween (1978), including the previous episode we did on it 00:14:17 — Pre-movie predictions 00:21:5

Have any movie characters ever been more sinister and disgusting than the Addamses? No. But we can't help but love them anyway, gosh darn it. We take a deep dive into the world of the Addams Family, first going through their long history and then talking about Barry Sonnenfeld's Addams Family Values (1993), the sequel to the original Addams Family (1991) that was a financial disappointment but has since become even more beloved.    Time stamps: 00:21 — Our personal history with the Addams movies and TV shows + predictions 15:13 — History of The Addams Family, from cartoon beginnings through the 1990s movies 43:36 — Discussion of Addams Family Values   This is our third entry in this year's collection of Load Bearing SCREAMS.  Head to https://www.youtube.com/@loadbearingbeamspod to watch new, full video episodes every week. Artwork by Laci Roth. Music by Rural Route Nine (https://open.spotify.com/album/3oj7ZSGqfnZTtTlXa1fyeo?si=fZxDj8ZWT-2SpxhTUIdxow). 

Is M. Night Shyamalan's Signs (2002) just a bunch of corny rubbish, or is Matt right when he calls it the scariest movie he's ever seen? We made our longest episode ever to figure it out.  He's seen this movie so many times he can recite every minute detail of it. We talk about weird background characters, the newsworthiness of crop circles, the threat level posed by armadillos, the acute stress one goes through preparing one's house for an alien attack, and so much more.  It's the second entry in this year's collection of Load Bearing SCREAMS. Ghost scaring beams. Boo!  Head to https://www.youtube.com/@loadbearingbeamspod to watch new, full video episodes every week. Artwork by Laci Roth. Music by Rural Route Nine (https://open.spotify.com/album/3oj7ZSGqfnZTtTlXa1fyeo?si=fZxDj8ZWT-2SpxhTUIdxow). 

For the first time on our show, we're revisiting a movie we already covered. It's Tim Burton's second feaure, 1988's Beetlejuice. Matt didn't like this spooky haunted house classic back in 2017, but does he feel any differently all these years later? And how complicated were stereo instructions, anyway? To answer these questions and many more, we devote about three times as much time talking about the movie as we did the first time around.  And while you're at it, head to https://www.youtube.com/@loadbearingbeamspod to watch new, full video episodes every week. Artwork by Laci Roth. Music by Rural Route Nine (https://open.spotify.com/album/3oj7ZSGqfnZTtTlXa1fyeo?si=fZxDj8ZWT-2SpxhTUIdxow).   

The fifties, baby. We're taking a look at 1998's Pleasantville, which takes a look at a 1950s America that never was, and always will be. This movie, marketed as a comedy, is actually a pretty serious look at fascism, oppression, and forced conformity, and would it surprise you to hear its message is still relevant today? We thought we were past all of that! Want to watch our show on YouTube? Head  to https://www.youtube.com/@loadbearingbeamspod to watch new, full video episodes every week. Artwork by Laci Roth. Music by Rural Route Nine (https://open.spotify.com/album/3oj7ZSGqfnZTtTlXa1fyeo?si=fZxDj8ZWT-2SpxhTUIdxow).   

The nineties, baby. We're getting into it over Romy & Michele's High School Reunion (1997), which sees Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino as the attractive women version of Beavis and Butt-Head trying to persuade their former high school classmates that they invented Post-Its. But beneath this sweet and pleasant comedy lurks something far more sinister. Is this actually a toxic, co-dependant friendship that's imprisoning both Romy and Michele? Would their lives be better if they actually stayed split up after their Tucson road trip? And why would anybody ever want to go to their high school reunion? Content warning: We discuss the sexual abuse allegations against both Woody Allen and Harvey Weinstein.  Want to watch our show on YouTube? Head to https://www.youtube.com/@loadbearingbeamspod to watch new, full video episodes every week. Artwork by Laci Roth. Music by Rural Route Nine (https://open.spotify.com/album/3oj7ZSGqfnZTtTlXa1fyeo?si=fZxDj8ZWT-2SpxhTUIdxow). 

Come on down to our podcast and have yourself a time. Laci and Matt have a long conversation about the 1999 Trey Parker-helmed South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. We go step by step through the movie and its history, as well as the larger history of the South Park TV series and how our relationships with it have changed over time. It's not easy spinning an animated show off into a big screen movie—you have to appeal to existing fans while bringing in new ones, and tell a story worthy of a big budget and an extended running time. So, does this movie pull it off? We compare it to The Simpsons Movie, Beavis & Butt-Head Do America, and The Bob's Burgers Movie to see how it well it holds up. Hey, we have a full video version of this episode up on YouTube. https://youtu.be/gedWc8El0Ig?si=e4zk7bw7LjoSeKQc

Hey folks, we planned on having a new episode out today, but the summer is kicking our asses and we are basically punting on the rest of it. Our tentative plan is to resume a new-episode-every-week schedule once school starts and we get more schedule flexibility. So, August 18. Thanks for sticking with us, we've really enjoyed doing the new episodes this year and want to do more of them. 

We're in the midst of our Summer of Calamities but we only have a month or so left of it. So this is an off week for Load Bearing Beams, but we'll be back on Friday, July 21, 2023. It'll be a Matt movie episode, and he's currently choosing between two different late-1990s movies based on popular animated television shows: The Rugrats Movie and South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut. Basically the same movie. Here then is our schedule for the next month: Friday, July 21, 2023 - Episode 86 Friday, July 28, 2023 - Episode 87 Friday, August 4, 2023 - Episode 88 Friday, August 11, 2023 - no new episode

Laci and Matt discuss 1996's divorced women picture The First Wives Club, where Diane Keaton, Bette Midler, and Goldie Hawn rekindle their college-era friendship and then something something get back at all of the world's scummy ex-husbands? We're not sure either, but this is a rollicking good time discussing this really funny '90s hit. A lot of time is spent debating how the closing musical number makes each of us feel. Want to watch this episode? Head over to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@loadbearingbeams2747 Artwork by Laci Roth. Music by Rural Route Nine (Wade Hymel and Matt Stokes). Listen to their album The Joy of Averages on Spotify: https://bit.ly/42vff7s

George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a man who just wants to fly around in big jet airliners and accrue miles, but will his heart get in the way?? Find out with us as we discuss Up In the Air (2009), director Jason Reitman's follow-up to his massive hit Juno (2007). This movie packs a lot of stuff in, and we address it all—how it feels to get fired, why Laci hates George Clooney's stupid face, and what's the deal with the food they're serving up there. Want to watch this episode? Head over to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@loadbearingbeams2747 Artwork by Laci Roth. Music by Rural Route Nine (Wade Hymel and Matt Stokes). Listen to their album The Joy of Averages on Spotify: https://bit.ly/42vff7s

Join us, dear listeners, at the Whistle Stop Cafe, where Idgy, Ninny, Buddy, Grady, Little Buddy, Smokey, Big George and all your best pals are waiting to cook you up a plate of Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), a tale of southern-fried romance and deadly train accidents. In a wide-ranging, free-wheeling, railroad-riding discussion, Laci and Matt unpack this movie and the many questions it raises. Why does Jessica Tandy harass strangers at the nursing home? What about Mary-Louise Parker's pill-addled energy in this movie do we find so appealing? And how is Kathy Bates's character Evelyn like Jigsaw from the SAW movies? Want to watch this episode? Head over to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@loadbearingbeams2747 Catch our most recent video episode, on Lake Placid: https://youtu.be/zX7UsWfTDgI Artwork by Laci Roth. Music by Rural Route Nine (Wade Hymel and Matt Stokes). Listen to their album The Joy of Averages on Spotify: https://bit.ly/42vff7s  

Hey folks! Load Bearing Beams here with an update for you: We'll be back with a brand-new, full-length episode in one week (June 23, 2023). That episode will be on the film Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), so get ready now by watching it. The schedule through the rest of our season will then be as follows: June 23 — Episode 83: Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) June 30 — Episode 84: Pearl Harbor (2001) July 7 — Episode 85 July 14 — Off-week July 21 — Episode 86 July 28 — Episode 87 August 4 — Episode 88