Tag Archives: REVIEWS

TEASER: Marriage Story With Francesca Fiorentini

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This week’s Bonus Frotcast and all Bonus Frotcasts are available at Patreon.com/Frotcast. You can add our premium feed to your regular podcast app.

In this week’s bonus movie Frotcast, Francesca Fiorentini from The Bitchuation Room and The Young Turks joins us to discuss the year’s most talked about film, Marriage Story. Boy, people sure do love middlebrow dreck about sexless intellectuals, don’t they? Starring Adam Driver and Scarlet Johansson, Noah Baumbach’s latest is yet another work to remind me of John Dolan’s takedown of Jonathan Franzen:

Yes, it’s time someone said it outright: Manhattanites are the new  hicks. The mall kids are generations ahead of them. Things that are  stale jokes to the mall kids strike the NY publishing world as fresh and  hilarious. Maybe they just don’t watch enough TV, or they spend too  much time drinking cocktails with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ghost — whatever  the reason, the Manhattanites have lost it completely. The  scriptwriters of Christmas Vacationare Flaubertian chroniclers  of provincial mores next to Franzen. When you compare Franzen with  really talented observers of Minnesota life, like the Coens in Fargo, or even Garrison Keillor inLake Wobegon Days, his incompetence stands out even more sharply.

And  if one were to compare him with the great novelist of “pelagic  America,” Charles Portis… no, it would be an insult to Portis even to  compare a hack like Franzen with him. And yet Portis is all but unknown,  while Franzen is everybody’s darling…. Agh, ya buncha idiots!

Now just re-read this passage so that it’s about Brooklynites, Marriage Story, and Mrs. Fletcher (which is kind of like Marriage Story only much better). Yes, unfortunately (or fortunately?), none of your Frot pals liked this movie so much — which is kind of weird, since Francesca is divorced, Matt and I are both dating divorceés, and all three of us work in the arts and/or entertainment, so we should be the target audience (Francesca and I even lived in Brooklyn!). As Matt puts it, their fights are like a montage of every relationship argument in a play you’ve ever seen. I contend that this movie is either about a couple where a person is too cowardly to admit that they don’t love the other person anymore, or a couple who still loves each other but whose relationship couldn’t survive them wanting slightly different careers. Oy. No more stories about sexless New York intellectuals, please.

We finish things off reading about the Topanga tea ceremony and listen to your weird voicemails. You guys are sick, truly. Frot on, and you’ll never be lonely when you have the Frotcast.

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Frotcast 419: Trapped In A Lighthouse with Brendan

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Keepin’ secrets, are ye?? That’s right, this week on the Frotcast we’ve reunited with our old pal Brendan to discuss a film that’s firmly in the Frotcast wheelhouse. I’m talking about The Lighthouse, starring Willem Dafoe, who Brendan once imagined had a “gnarled penis” and has long been one of his favorite impressions, behind Michael Caine and Mark Ruffalo. Brendan also had a nautical childhood in which his father taught him the NATO alphabet and forced him to sail. When he texted me about The Lighthouse I had to look up what “scrimshaw” was. How is it in Matt’s wheelhouse? Well, it turns out it’s basically an entire movie about a guy who is mad because he’s so horny. Matt hates being horny! He also loves parroting movie lines of old-timey curmudgeons and in William Dafoe’s “wickie” he has found his new Daniel Plainview.

SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! Yes, this episode has lots of “spoilers.” Personally I think The Lighthouse is impossible to spoil and you’ll be fine if you haven’t seen it, but I don’t want anyone whining. It would’ve been weird not to discuss “plot points,” because The Lighthouse has like three of them and they don’t really matter. In any case, listen at yer own risk, ye dogs.

We wrap things up with your voicemails and some texts from Bret. Now, time to drink exactly one beer and call 911.

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Teaser: Matt And Vince Talk ‘Parasite’

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This week’s Bonus Frotcast and all Bonus Frotcasts are available at Patreon.com/Frotcast. You can add our premium feed to your regular podcast app.

On this week’s bonus Frotcast, Matt and I are discussing what seems objectively to be one of the year’s best films, Parasite from Bong Joon Ho. A family of grifters (the Kims) lives in a semi-underground apartment where they steal wifi and have to chase away drunks trying to piss on their windows, until they find a rich family (the Parks) who just might be their meal ticket — provided the Kims can con their way into the Parks’ home and into their hearts. There’s only one thing standing in their way: some other poor people. It’s a comedy of a manners, it’s a class story, it’s weird as hell sometimes and super funny, we loved it. We’re discussing all the things you may have missed and reading Armond White’s review to find out why he’s one of two negative reviews on RottenTomatoes for it.

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Frotcast Bonus: Jojo Rabbit, With Matt And Vince

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This week’s Bonus Frotcast and all Bonus Frotcasts are available at Patreon.com/Frotcast. You can add our premium feed to your regular podcast app!

Jojo has an imaginary friend, and get this: it’s ADOLF HITLER. That’s right, on this week’s bonus Frotcast, Matt and I are discussing Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit, which is basically Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, only with Nazis instead of boy scouts. Oh, and also the Drop Dead Hitler thing. We discuss whether Scarlett Johansson’s character is brilliant or obnoxious, whether we enjoy watching stories about little kids in love, what a Nazi comedy should look like, and pitch our ideal version of this movie, where it’s just about Sam Rockwell’s character getting wild in the dying days of the Third Reich. Please enjoy and subscribe! Let the Frotcast be your imaginary Hitler.

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Joker Image via Warner Bros

Frotcast 418: Eh, I’m Joakin’ Here, With Joey Avery

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This week, the San Diego Hammer, Joey Avery returns to the Frotcast to help Vince and Matt sort through our Joker feelings and ask how we managed to avoid getting shot in a spree-killing by some Joker-inspired incel. So this Joker movie… we kinda liked it? That topic takes up the bulk of our time, but we also spare some time to discuss Terrence Howard at the Emmys last week, and some of his incredible discoveries in the realm of mathematics, astronomy, particle physics, and… uh… horticulture? He opened up the flower of life, we know at least that much. Joey has a new comedy album out (Junior Varsity, by Pier 69!) so be sure to check that out, and in related news, Joey recently met his spiritual sibling, Urijah Faber, the most chilled out surf bro ever inducted into the UFC hall of fame. Hope you like this episode! Be sure to join us on Patreon at Patreon.com/frotcast for all the bonus content, including this month’s live riff of Tiptoes.

Email us at Frotcast@gmail.com, voicemail at 415 275 0030.

You’ll never be lonely when you have the Frotcast.

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Death Of Dick Long Still courtesy A24

TEASER: Matt And Vince Talk The Death Of Dick Long

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This week’s Bonus Frotcast and all Bonus Frotcasts are available at Patreon.com/Frotcast. You can add our premium feed to your regular podcast app.

A few weeks ago I drove across town into the teeth of five o’clock traffic and saw a movie that instantly put me in a good mood — no small feat! That movie was ‘The Death Of Dick Long’ and it was so good that I demanded Matt see it to prove that I wasn’t crazy. Turns out, we both loved it, so much that we had to do a podcast about it. What do most movies about rural goofballs get so wrong and how does ‘The Death Of Dick Long’ get it so right? Why does this movie remind us so much of going to The Gathering Of The Juggalos a few years back? Discover the answers to these questions and more (what is the meaning of life? why am I here? why does the caged bird sing?) on this week’s B-B-B-B-B-B-BONUS FROTCAST! Check out ‘The Death Of Dick Long’ when it opens this weekend (if it’s playing near you) and remember: you’ll never be lonely when you have the Frotcast.

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UNLOCKED: Matt And Vince Review ‘IT Chapter Two’

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This episode was available weeks ago to our Patreon subscribers. Become one today at Patreon.com/Frotcast. You can add our premium feed to your regular podcast app.

Hey everyone! It’s finally here! And by “it” we are talking about “It” the movie not “it” as in the way teens talked about sex in the 80s. Unlike Vince who is a philistine, Matt has actually read the novel It by Stephen King and has a lot of thoughts about how books are better than movies. In general, Matt and Vince discuss everything from clowns being scary, to redheads being in movies all the time, to Stephen King’s ideas being the product of cocaine. It’s a really great episode and I’m not just saying that because I am one of the two hosts of the show.

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TEASER – Joe and Vince Talk ‘Rambo: Last Blood’

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In this week’s bonus episode, Joe Sinclitico joins Vince to discuss Rambo: Last Blood, a stupendously racist, fantastically gory rape-revenge fantasy that seems to be aimed squarely at the Dads-who-watch-knife-smithing-shows-on-the-History-Channel demographic. Or as Joe likes to think of it, Home Alone for psychotic preppers. Naturally, we had a good time with it. We discuss Stallone’s refreshingly honest takes on HGH and his preternatural understanding of the average America bro-CHUD brain, and marvel at the myriad ways Mexican drug cartel soldiers can be brutally murdered on screen with rebar and punji sticks. You truly do not want to miss this one.

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TEASER: Matt And Vince Review ‘IT Chapter Two’

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To hear the full episode, subscribe at Patreon.com/Frotcast. You can add our premium feed to your regular podcast app.

Hey everyone! It’s finally here! And by “it” we are talking about “It” the movie not “it” as in the way teens talked about sex in the 80s. Unlike Vince who is a philistine, Matt has actually read the novel It by Stephen King and has a lot of thoughts about how books are better than movies. In general, Matt and Vince discuss everything from clowns being scary, to redheads being in movies all the time, to Stephen King’s ideas being the product of cocaine. It’s a really great episode and I’m not just saying that because I am one of the two hosts of the show.

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Frotcast 415: Once Upon A Time In Frottywood

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This week on the Frotcast, we took one of our very special movie episodes that are usually only available to the Patreon subscribers and made it free for all the fans. Our topic this week? Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. That’s right, this week’s Frotcast harkens back to a simpler time when the Frotcast actually attempted to discuss movies. And this week, for better or worse, we actually succeeded.

With Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, there’s actually a lot to discuss. Like, is this the least plotty Tarantino movie ever? And how about that ending, did it make the movie or was it just Tarantino going back to being Tarantino after seemingly evolving for the previous two hours? Also, what were we to make of Brad Pitt’s character’s past? Was he intended as an antihero or just a super cool guy who maybe also did some pretty messed up stuff? We get into whether Once Upon A Time is reactionary, and of course discuss the backlash over the Bruce Lee scene and Margot Robbie-didn’t-get-enough-lines gate.

We get pretty serious, but we’re still us, so we left plenty of time to discuss a porn star’s incredible obituary and whether Aaron Carter has been flipping rescue dogs to make ends meet.

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